I've been to Almaty 4 times now. I've taken a slow train three ways; an airplane three ways; and the fast train two ways. (See this post about my first train ride, in March 2010; this post about the second train ride, in November 2010; this post about the last and awful one, in December 2010.)
This time we did not buy the tickets at the train station. The train station is a good hour's trip away via bus, and last year it was a pain going to buy the tickets, waiting in line, and then discovering that my friend didn't have the proper documents for her child, so we had to leave and then come back. (Yes, you need documents--eg passport, some sort of identify card--simply to purchase tickets for train travel within Kazakhstan, for yourself as well as for minors.)
I'd heard that the small travel agency in Sariarka Mall (near my home) sold train tickets. And they do. Plus, there was no line, and the lady working there spoke English. She explained the tickets to us, showing us where to find the time, our wagon number, etc.
This time was my first experience on the fast train; after my last experience on the slow train, I vowed to never take it again (despite the first experience being rather pleasant).
We left Saturday at 7:25 pm and arrived Sunday at 7:47 am.
First, the inside is different. The hallways are even narrower than on the slow train; the interior is different (similar to white plastic walls, kind of futuristic). Inside the cabins are four blue chairs; the beds are pulled down by train attendants upon request. This frees up more space inside, and you don't bump your head while sitting upright. However, there's less room for luggage, as I'm used to spreading my things out on an upper bunk.
The slow train had a mini-table, which was nice to gather around; the fast train had a sink, which was nice in the mornings. It had TV-trays that attached to your chair for eating.
The attendant in charge of our wagon on our way to Almaty was super-friendly. She went out of her way to make us feel at home, even asking the people in my cabin to change spots with my two friends, who were in neighboring cabins. One man agreed to change, so there were three of us in one room, plus a Kazakh woman. In the end, it was nice that she stayed with us, she spoke some English and could help translate.
The restaurant menu was in our cabin, we could have ordered room service! Prices are inexpensive, too. The most expensive options were meat dishes, at a little over 1000 Tenge.
The attendant asked us to fill out some sort of guest book. Previous passengers had left their names and numbers and a short paragraph. She also gave us her name tag so we could write her name down. I wasn't sure if this was some sort of thing where we talk about service, or this was a memory-type book for her. I wrote in English that we were having a great time and the service was great; my friend signed in Hindi.
In the morning, we had breakfast at the restaurant--eggs and "blini" (Russian pancakes, similar to French crepes.)
Sophia slept sound, but my friend and I didn't sleep too well. As nice as a train can be, it's still a train. It rocked a lot, but that didn't bother me too much sleeping.
On the way back to Astana, the attendant wasn't too friendly, but she wasn't mean either. She seemed to simply go through the motions of what she was supposed to do, not bothering to put extra effort into it. In the morning, she knocked persistently at our door until we let her in (Sophia was changing, I yelled out, "Wait!" in Russian but she didn't seem to want to wait long.) Finally, we opened the door, she quickly said something in Russian, and before we could even acknowledge that we had heard her, she left to knock on the next person's door and say the same thing. Probably she said something like, "It's morning and we're almost there." But it was funny that she was so insistent on telling us something and then didn't care if we'd heard or understood.
Still, overall it was a good experience. Half as much as the plane and gets you to downtown Almaty in the morning, with the whole day in front of you.
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