For Tajikistan, the issue of quickly overcoming space in the 20-30s of the last century became of paramount importance. Because the lack of communication routes, transport corridors, and complete lack of roads hindered the development of the republic.

In November 1925, the authorities decided to build a railway and appealed to the Chairman of the Government of the USSR Valerian Kuibyshev with a request to allocate the necessary funds.

Dushanbe Railway Park, monument steam locomotive Eu-733, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. The locomotive was built in 1929 at the Bryansk Locomotive Plant. It was installed in honor of the arrival of the first train in Stalinabad (Dushanbe) in 1929 and the labor exploits of the Dushanbe railway workers during the Great Patriotic War.
On April 16, 1926, it was decided to build a broad-gauge Termez-Dushanbe railway with a total length of 225 kilometers. The funds – 14 million rubles in gold – for its construction were allocated from the union budget. An order was issued for the complete and uninterrupted provision of all materials for the construction of the railway.

Engineering and technical personnel for the construction of the road were sent from Moscow and Leningrad.

Engineering and technical staff who worked on the construction of the Termez-Dushanbe railway

The entire construction process was carried out manually. Armed with shovels, crutch hammers and wrenches, the builders laid the railway track. From Denau to Dushanbe, before erecting the capital embankment, the builders constructed a temporary railway track from... reeds, laid rails on it and used such a shaky canvas to deliver soil from afar for the capital embankment.

1931, Dushanbe station, the Dushanbe-Tashkent passenger train sets off

The project of the entire road was ready three years after the start of work – in the autumn of 1928. Before the final draft was drawn up, there was a separate draft for each site.

In 1929, the construction of the railway bridge across the Dushanbe River was completed in Dushanbe.

Paradoxically, the last surveys of the route were carried out already when the railway bridges were built. The railway line had to be brought to the bridges, instead of building bridges where the line ran.

On September 10, 1929, the railway line was brought to Dushanbe. There was no station back then. The builders simply stuck the flag in the ground at the site of the future railway station. And in the same year, the first train arrived in Dushanbe.
Dushanbe, September 10, 1929, arrival of the first train in the capital of Tajikistan. An arch was built for the reception of the first steam locomotive and a place was cleared for the rally.

After the arrival of the train in Dushanbe and the establishment of railway communication with Tajikistan, construction work to strengthen the roadbed and replace temporary structures with permanent ones along the railway route continued until 1935.

Dushanbe, September 10, 1929, cinematographer Vasily Kuzin makes a documentary film "Arrival of the first train in Dushanbe."

The completion of the railway line to Dushanbe allowed for the movement of a huge flow of goods to the republic for industrial construction, agriculture and trade.

The first steam locomotive to arrive in Dushanbe