The President of Kazakhstan visited Stadler‘s Astana works

On 19 June 2025, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was presented with the first finished coaches produced at the Stadler Kazakhstan works in Astana. The key advantages of the coaches are modern solutions aimed at enhancing passenger comfort and safety. The service life of the cars, adapted for harsh climatic conditions, is 40 years.

Stadler has named the passenger coaches as CHARME, which is an abbreviataion for Cleverer hocheffizienter adaptierbarer Reisezugwagen mit modularer Einrichtung (Clever highly efficient adaptable passenger coach with modular layout).

In 2025, the Astana factory plans to produce 51 coaches. They will include:
- 21 sleeper (open compartment) coaches,
- 3 PRM coaches,
- 21 platzkartny (open compartment) coaches,
- 6 generator coaches.

These figures are tentative and may slightly change depending on the KTZ’s final selection of the routes.

Platzkartny (open compartment) coaches offer beds without doors between compartments, creating a more open layout.

The PRM coach is a compartment type coach with the difference that one of the compartments and one toilet in it has different dimensions, which are suitable for people with disabilities. In addition, it has a bistro area, a platform lift, and a separate compartment for the train crew.

Generator coaches are specially designed for operation on non-electrified lines or in regions where external power supply is unstable or unavailable. They provide an autonomous source of electricity for the entire train, ensuring uninterrupted operation of lighting, air conditioning, communication systems, and other on-board equipment. The generator coach is shorter in length (18,309 mm), while the other types of coaches are all the same length (26,609 mm).

By 2030, 557 new coaches will be built, fully renewing the KTZ fleet of passenger coaches. Kazakh enterprises are also involved in the localisation of production. At present, the KTZ fleet consists of 2,167 coaches, including 732 Tulpar Talgo cars, 1,321 standard cars and 114 cars of EMUs or DMUs. Around 51 % of the fleet is under 11 years old, 17 % is from 11 to 20 years old, 32 % is over 20 years old.