Baku-Tbilisi-Kars route to aid smooth travel between closest allies New strategic corridor on the horizon

Dynamic growth of passenger traffic in the Greater Baku agglomeration, as well as the need for railway communication with the regions of the country, contributed to the implementation of several projects postponed during the COVID-19 pandemic. To optimise this work, Azerbaijan Railways CJSC has developed a three-year strategic plan for the gradual restoration of passenger rail traffic on several routes. For the same purpose, the supply of rolling stock is being increased. The company's chairman Rovshan Rustamov said that the second FLIRT train of Swiss company Stadler Rail Group was delivered to Baku on December 12, and two more trains will arrive before the end of the year. Postponed cross-border projects are to be implemented following the opening of land borders: in particular, Swiss passenger trains will run on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) road to Türkiye.

In the post-pandemic period in Azerbaijan, the need to increase passenger rail services between Baku and its suburbs, as well as on routes connecting the capital with more remote regions of the country, is growing every year. Focusing on this demand, Azerbaijan Railways is gradually implementing projects to restore passenger traffic suspended during the pandemic, as well as introducing additional rolling stock on the most popular suburban routes. In particular, the Baku-Gabala-Baku fast passenger train started operating on March 18 this year: a comfortable four-car double-decker passenger train KISS manufactured by Swiss company Stadler Rail Group was launched on the new railway line with a length of 309 km, which was put into operation two years ago. At the same time in March, the Swiss electric train resumed operation on the Baku-Ganja route, and in May additional flights of similar electric trains were also added in another demanded direction - Baku-Agstafa-Baku.

"A three-year strategic plan has been prepared to gradually restore passenger traffic on routes and directions that existed before the coronavirus pandemic," Azerbaijan Railways chairman Rovshan Rustamov recently told local media. - This year we launched the Baku-Gabala route with a length of 309 km and extended the Baku-Ganja route by another 95 km to Agstafa, as well as we are also working on launching the Yevlakh-Balaken railway line".

All the above-mentioned and prospective passenger routes are equipped with high-speed trains of Stadler Rail Group, capable of travelling on straight sections of "steel" highways at a speed of 80-100 km/hour. By comparison, traditional intercity buses travelling on highways occasionally face traffic jams or the need to overtake a long line of heavy trucks. The absence of such problems on railway lines ensures uninterrupted traffic, allowing train passengers to significantly reduce their journey time. In addition to the convenience for residents of the capital and the periphery, which significantly reduces the loss of time, all these routes are extremely important for the development of international tourism, as they significantly simplify and speed up access to the hotel and recreational potential of the country's regions.

"Our company has already received the first of four passenger trains of FLIRT brand of Swiss company Stadler Rail Group, which are planned to be delivered to Azerbaijan by the end of 2023: the first one is already in Baku, and on December 12 the second such train crossed the border," Rustamov said. According to him, the production of the remaining six trains is currently being finalised, in particular, the work on sending two more trains to our country has approached the final stage. After completion of tests, it is planned to put them into operation in March 2024.

As previously reported, under the contract signed with Stadler, Azerbaijan Railways will receive 10 single-deck FLIRT trains consisting of five cars each in 2023-2024. Specifically, of the ten trains, six are electric and another four are diesel trains; they are designed to operate on non-electrified lines. In particular, they can be launched on such routes as Baku-Lankaran-Astara, Baku-Aghdam, Baku-Balaken and Baku-Zangilan, where electrification is completely absent or only a part of the lines is covered by it.

In turn, some of the ordered new electric trains are planned to be used to meet the rapidly growing passenger flow in the suburbs of Baku, in particular, three new trains are planned to be launched on the Absheron Ring Road. Currently, the number of carriages in express trains put into operation on the Baku Ring Road has been increased to seven, and by the end of the year, the number of carriages in the train will increase to eight. The traffic intensity is also planned to increase in the direction of Sumgayit: one more five-car express train is planned to be launched on the Baku-Sumgayit-Baku route next year.

According to experts, Azerbaijan Railways will be able to start extending railway lines in Absheron after the completion of the construction of "steel" highways in the Karabakh region, provided that the necessary amount of budget financing is attracted and new high-speed Swiss electric trains are purchased.  

It is noteworthy that along with the expansion of high-speed passenger traffic in the capital and regions of the republic, Azerbaijan Railways specialists are planning to develop similar cross-border projects, first of all, to establish passenger traffic with Türkiye via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway line.

It should be recalled that the launch of the first passenger train on the BTK route was planned back in 2019, and a pilot train Baku-Tbilisi-Baku (38/37) was successfully launched in October. However, the impending coronavirus pandemic, the subsequent Patriotic War in Karabakh, as well as the events of 2020-2022 - inflation, recession, energy and other crises forced the project participants to postpone its implementation to a more distant date.

Today, the key points that are holding back the launch of passenger traffic on the BTK include the still existing closed land border regime in Azerbaijan, as well as large-scale modernisation works on the BTK section laid in Georgia. Reconstruction and repair of the 183-kilometre section of the Georgian lines to increase the speed of trains and the capacity of the corridor should be completed tentatively at the end of the first quarter of 2024. Azerbaijan's investments in this project exceeded $120 million, and at the end of the project the volume of cargo traffic along the BTK will be expanded from 1 million to 5 million tonnes, at the same time, due to the increase in the speed characteristics of the main line, it will be possible to move modern passenger trains along the corridor.

According to experts' estimates, at the initial stage, the BTK will be able to carry up to 1 million passengers per year, and in the future, if there is demand, the number of travellers may increase by up to 3 million people. However, whether railway passenger traffic will start in 2024 or later depends largely on the opening of land borders. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan Railways is proactively addressing the issue of purchasing a rolling stock for the BTK corridor. Initially, cars for the BTK passenger route were planned to be delivered from the Stadler-Minsk assembly plant in Belarus (two dozen sleeping cars have already been delivered from here in 2019-2020), but with the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Belarus also fell under sanctions, so the order for cars was transferred to the plant in Poland. It is noteworthy that the operating speed of Stadler cars allows the train to move at speeds of up to 160 km/h.

In general, after completion of BTK modernisation next year with the existing rolling stock it is quite possible to establish pilot passenger traffic to Ankara and even Istanbul. Especially since Türkiye not so long ago launched high-speed trains between Ankara and Sivas, reducing the traffic between these settlements from 12 to 2 hours.

"The high-speed railway to be built in Türkiye will connect with the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars main line. We intend to build a connecting line from Yerköy station to Kayseri, and we will extend this branch line to Erzincan, Erzurum and Kars," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in May this year. According to the Turkish leader, with the launch of this line, called the "Iron Silk Road", a strategic corridor of global importance will start working in the region.