Soviet infrastructure in Central Asia

Much of the influence of the Soviet Union can be seen in the infrastructure of Central Asia. Central Asia is a nexus of said infrastructure for transportation, goods delivery and energy distribution. Much of the industrial infrastructure had greatly declined in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, especially in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The roads, railroads and energy lines are thus oriented towards the Russian Federation and away from other regional neighbors, such as China, Afghanistan or Iran.

Railroad Transportation

The Central Asian railroad network was designed primarily with the needs of former Soviet Union planners in mind. The entire Soviet railways system was built with Moscow at its core. Consequently, Central Asian railroads are mainly oriented north-south and (now-existing) borders were disregarded in planning. As a result, virtually all freight cargo from Central Asia to Russia crosses Kazakhstan, including trade with Europe. Uzbekistan also has significant transit traffic.Central Asia: Decay and Decline. p. 34

The total length of the rail network in the four CARs is about 19,600 kilometers (km) but size varies by country. Kazakhstan has about 14,600 km of main line of which 37% are double-track and 28% are electrified. Uzbekistan has about 4,000 km including the 400 km of new line constructed in the last 2–3 years. About 150 km are double track and about 10% are electrified. The other Central Asian countries are mostly single track and not electrified. In 2004, main lines consisted of 426 km in the Kyrgyz Republic mostly in the north, and 533 km in Tajikistan including 106 km in the north.

Soviet Rail Management

During the Soviet era, railways of the Central Asian countries were under the auspices of the Ministry of Railways, separated regionally into:

Alma-Ata Railway Bureau (southern Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan) Tselinnaya Railway Bureau (northern Kazakhstan) West-Kazakhstan Railway Bureau Central Asian Railway Bureau (entire Central Asian region excluding Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan)

The Kazakh Railroad is one of the 7 divisions of the Southern Urals Railroad. It was formed in 1958 out of the Turkestan-Siberian and Karaganda railroads and sections of the former Tashkent, Orenburg, and Southern Urals railroads.Prohorov (1976). 11: 501 The principal trunk line connected Kazakhstan to the Urals and the Volga region. The Kinel'-Orenburg-Iletsk trunk line connected the European regions of the USSR with Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia. The principal commodities transported were coal (22%), ferrous metals (12%), oil (10%), and building materials (9%). The Southern Urals Railroad was awarded the Order of the October Revolution in 1971.Prokhorov (1978). 30: 658 In 1971, this railroad had 13,250 km of track, representing 9% of the total rail network of the USSR. While some of the lines were built in 1915-17, 80% of the lines were built in the Soviet period. In 1971, the Kazakh Railroad was awarded the Order of Lenin.

After independence, each country nationalized and progressively took control of their own railways. Kazakhstan's three companies were merged into a single one in 1997.Prakash. p. 21

Due to the specialization in the railway manufacturing sector under the COMECON regime (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance – the Soviet international assistance framework), most passenger cars were made in East Germany, locomotives were made in Russia and Czechoslovakia. As there are no railroad locomotive or car manufacturers in Central Asia, there is a constant shortage of spare parts and an inability to properly maintain railroad vehicles.RIDA. p. 113

In the USSR, the power supply system of an electric railroad is closely tied to the overall power system. Electricity arrives from substations in high-voltage power transmission lines, is converted, and then transmitted over feed and negative booster lines to the contact system and then to the rolling stock. Depending on the equipment in the rolling stock, the power may be supplied over DC systems using single-phase systems at the commercial frequency (50 hertz) or lower (16 2/3 or 25 Hz). The DC systems in the USSR had a nominal voltage of 3 kilovolts.Prohorov (1978). 30: 613 In 1956, the Central Committee of the Soviet Union adopted the General Plan for the Electrification of Railroads - after which major rail routes were upgraded.

Rail gauge

Rail gauge in former Soviet territory differs from the gauge in the rest of the world. Rail tracks in the former Soviet territories are on a broad-gauge track of 1,524 millimeters (60 inches) versus the global standard gauge of 1,435 millimeters used in China, most of Europe, North America, most of Australia, Iran and Turkey. The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union intentionally used a different gauge (ostensibly to block invaders from entering Russia by rail). Consequently, trains on the current rail line from China to Kazakhstan must stop at the border, where cargo is unloaded and then reloaded onto trains on the broad-gauge rail line in Kazakhstan for transit through Central Asia.

During Soviet times, locomotives and wagons were regularly supplied on the basis of estimated needs. When the Soviet Union broke up, shares of the Soviet wagon fleet were allocated to the various republics; the smaller ones did not get the better deals. As a feature of the Soviet system, state-owned rail companies provide provided social welfare services such as free education and housing to their workers. After independence, each country had to figure out how to address these obligations (without Soviet funding). In Soviet times, marketing was not a concern for railways since their clients were for the most part assigned to them by a central planning agency. To increase revenues after the dissolution of the Union, railways had either to find more clients or to increase tariffs.

Rail prominence and decline

The new railways faced difficulties adopting monolithic organizations with large social welfare burdens and aging equipment. The Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan started national railways from scratch as they were left with only branches of Soviet companies. The railways changed from a command economy in which the only client was the state to a market economy with many clients, each with its own requirements and free to choose another, more suitable transport mode. Networks were not designed with a national economy in mind and were poorly connected often necessitating crossing borders to travel between regions of a country. There was a sharp fall in traffic volume, which has started picking up since 1999.

In the CIS, an inter-governmental agreement was signed as early as 14 February 1992. This organization coordinates the operations and development of the railways and has facilitated several important agreements on tariffs.Prakash. p. 18

Regional traffic in Central Asia is overwhelmingly carried by rail, estimated at 90%.Otsuka. p. 48 For trade within Central Asia, roadways carry only 22% of all goods.Prakash. p. 8 The Kazak railway, via Kzyl-Orda and Aralsk, has traditionally provided the main connection between Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic and between European Russia and Northern Europe and now provides a route to the Caspian Sea port of Aktau. The railway in Uzbekistan via Navoi and Nukus and then through Makat in Kazakhstan provides a link between southern Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan to western Siberia. It also provides an alternative east-west link to the Kzyl-Orda-Aralsk route via Aktau.Prakash. p. 10

In the 1990s a sharp decrease in traffic led to a period of large surpluses when only the best wagons were used. Many of the worst were either scrapped or cannibalized to maintain the others. At the time of independence, the number of freight wagons in Kazakhstan was estimated to be 128,000. In 2001, the number was down to 78,000. Of those, at least 30% and probably more were out of service. About 43% of the remaining wagons were over 20 years old.Prakash. p. 24

Rail Border Concerns

The Soviet Union built rail lines that stop at the former Soviet boundary. Thus, out of five Central Asian countries, only Kazakhstan (with China at Dostyk/Druzhba-Alashankou) and Turkmenistan (with Iran at Serakhs) have rail connections beyond the CIS. The railways connect northern Kazakhstan with Russia along the northern Trans-Asian Railway (TAR). Initially planned in 1954, construction began in the 1950s but was not completed until 1990. Freight trains began running in July 1991, followed by passenger trains linking Almaty and Ürümqi (in Xinjiang) in June 1992.Otsuka. p. 43

The Serakhs station that links the Russian gauge Turkmen network to the standard gauge Iranian network opened in 1996 for transit - to Iran and Turkey.RIDA. p. 12 This line connects to the Iranian railway system but it does not carry freight to the Persian Gulf, thus preventing a direct link between Central Asia and seafaring routes.Otsuka. p. 49

Thus, numerous underlying cross-border problems are at the root of the difficulties of regional rail transport. A lack of track-sharing agreements means that a single operator moving goods through two or more countries is not feasible. This causes time-consuming and costly border operations - trains have to change locomotives and crews at each border crossing. There is no system of sealing wagons (like under the TIR Convention) to avoid the need for customs inspections at borders or within transit countries.Prakash. p. 23

There is also a lack of regional uniform customs and other border controls that comply with international best practices, which makes documentation delays much more likely. Cargo documentation is often complicated with separate weigh bills for each country traversed; any documentation problem can result in the wagon being detained for several days.

"The aging of the locomotive fleet does not imply a shortage in the short-term; the problem is rather obsolescence."

Road Transportation

The relatively small populations, large land areas (particularly in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and difficult mountainous terrain (especially in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan) increase infrastructure costs and pose challenges to maintenance of road infrastructure in Central Asia. The total road length under central government management (roads considered national highway) in Central Asia is 59,430 km, almost all of which is paved.Prakash. p. 12 There are significant seasonal variations in road use due to the transportation of fresh agricultural products. Almost all food products are carried by road transport from south to north, particularly during the warmer months.

Soviet Road Building

Soviet infrastructure in Central Asia

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