In addition to electrification, the work included rehabilitation of 9km of line, realignment of six sections totalling 16km, installation of 54 new turnouts, reconstruction of Qarshi station, and resignalling.

The $US 325m project, which has taken nearly three and a half years to complete, was funded with $US 111m from UZ, a $US 100m Asian Development Bank loan, and the remainder from the state budget.

The work has increased the maximum speed to 160km/h, cutting the 511km Tashkent - Samarkand - Qarshi journey time from 6 hours to 3 hours for Talgo trains and 4 hours for conventional passenger trains.

UZ is currently electrifying the Samarkand - Buhara line as part of a plan to electrify around 2000km of lines.