Azerbaijan Railways, Swiss Stadler sign new railway car purchase contract

Azerbaijan Railways and Swiss company Stadler signed a contract on the purchase and sale of 30 new passenger rail cars that meet European standards in Baku on June 11, the company told Trend on June 11.The cars will be supplied to the republic before the new Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway [to be launched in 2015], designed to connect the railways of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, is commissioned."It will be possible to replace the pair of wheels for movement on the European track," the company said.

A working train is planned to be launched via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway by the end of this year, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Transport Ministry Namiq Hasanov said earlier.

Construction is planned for a new 105-kilometer branch of the railroad as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the railway's Akhalkalaki-Marabda-Tbilisi section will be reconstructed in Georgia, which will increase its capacity to 15 million tonnes of cargo per year. A post in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing tracks in Georgia to the European ones will also be built.

The peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tonnes of cargo per year. This figure will be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tonnes of cargo at the initial stage. (Trend.az)