New passenger carriages on Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway route

Azerbaijani Railways OJSC intends to put new passenger carriages into operation on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars route.

The regional railway link directly connects Kars in Turkey, Tbilisi in Georgia and Baku in Azerbaijan.

The new railway cars will be installed at the Georgia-Turkey border checkpoint. Here, the wheel pair of those carriages will change from 1,520 mm to 1,432 mm for moving in Turkey.

For this purpose, the company applied to the Ministry of Finance for state budget funds to purchase 30 high quality carriages.

The new carriages meet international standards and will be purchased from Swiss Stadler Rail Group Company, Azerbaijan-based news agency APA-Economics reported.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway initiative aimed to improve trade and economic relations between the three regions, as well as gaining foreign direct investment by connecting Europe and Asia.

In 2005 high officials of the three countries agreed on a project to facilitate transportation of passengers and goods, principally oil.