Kars – Akhalkalaki – Tbilisi – Baku railway line

Kars – Akhalkalaki (–Tbilisi – Baku)
Schematic representation of the Kars – Achalkalaki – Tbilisi – Baku railway line
Route length:	105/718 km
Gauge :	1435/1520 mm
Legend from Ankara and Istanbul Haydarpaşa 0 Kars to Gyumri ( Armenia ) 76 Turkey / Georgia Akhalkalaki (city station) 105 Achalkalaki station ( gauge changing station ) Ninozminda from Yerevan Marabda Tbilisi to Batumi Georgia / Azerbaijan 826 Baku to Türkmenbaşy ( Turkmenistan ) and Aqtau ( Kazakhstan )

The Kars – Achalkalaki – Tiflis – Baku railway line , or KATB or BTK (Baku – Tiflis – Kars) for short , is an 849 km long railway connection between Turkey and Azerbaijan . It was put into operation on October 30, 2017 and is part of the Europe – Caucasus – Asia transport corridor .

Sections

The railway connection runs over the following sections:

• The Kars – Tbilisi railway line . it consists of
  • a 105 km long standard gauge new line (NBS) from Kars to Achalkalaki and the
  • Existing route Tbilisi -Achalkalaki in Russian broad gauge their 169 kilometer since 2007 - have been renovated - with interruptions;
• a 23 km long section of the Tbilisi – Yerevan and
• the 549 km long eastern section of the Poti – Baku railway line , renewed between 2008 and 2014.

history

Historical development

In the course of the Tbilisi – Kars railway line , there was a railway connection in the former Russian broad gauge of 1524 mm since 1899 . Both cities were then part of the Russian Empire . The route was extended to Erzurum until 1916 . Due to the newly drawn border between Turkey and the Soviet Union after the First World War , the line was cut up, but continued to be operated in broad gauge. After the by Ankara promoted, standard gauge rail line from Ankara-Gyumri Kars had reached the broad gauge line was west of Kars in two steps in 1957 and 1962, however, shut down the section Kars-Gyumri in 1964 with a three-rail track operated. Passenger traffic was stopped here at the end of 1988, freight traffic in 1990. After Armenia became independent in 1991 and the subsequent profound differences between Turkey and Armenia, this only line that existed between the two countries was never reopened.

Planning

Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey therefore decided, after 15 years of planning, to build a new cross-border line and to expand the remaining, existing lines for a Kars – Akhalkalaki – Tbilisi – Baku railway connection. Also, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan , which train ferries are connected to the Caspian Sea to the new route, have great interest in the connection. The contract for its construction was signed on January 13, 2007 in Tbilisi. It is the third joint project of the three countries after the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas pipeline from Azerbaijan to Erzurum, Turkey .

On the part of those directly involved and the People's Republic of China , the connection is viewed as part of the New Silk Road .

criticism

Armenia criticized the project because the existing, running through Armenian territory and currently untapped because of the closed Turkish-Armenian border rail link Kars- Gyumri -Tiflis not used, so the country bypassed and is further isolated. The existing route is also shorter than the new building. Furthermore, the currently not operated cross-border connection between Turkey and Armenia with a length of only around 18 kilometers could have been reactivated for a fraction of the costs of the new construction project. Therefore, both the US and the EU refused to provide co-financing. In 2004, the then Armenian President Robert Kocharyan expressed his confidence that the BTK could not be realized because it would allegedly not be economically viable. As already pointed out several times, the foreign minister of Azerbaijan joined Elmar Mammadyarov participation of Yerevan not on this project. To do this, however, Armenia must evacuate the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region.

There were also critical voices against the project in Georgia: Salome Zurabishvili , former Georgian Foreign Minister, expressed fears that the new route could cut traffic to the Black Sea ports of Poti and Batumi, which are economically important for Georgia . However, after repeated Russian boycotts against the Georgian economy since 2006, these concerns have diminished.

business

opening

On October 30, 2017, after the border tunnel between Turkey and Georgia was the last to be completed, the new railway connection was opened by the presidents of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , and Azerbaijan, İlham Əliyev , and the heads of government of Georgia, Giorgi Kwirikashvili , Kazakhstan, Baqytschan Saghyntajew , Uzbekistan , Abdulla Aripov , and other high-ranking representatives from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan opened.

The section east of Akhalkalaki is very demanding. Here the railway line has a gradient of 35 ‰ over longer distances . Initially, a maximum speed of 25 km / h is to be used there on a trial basis, but in practice this is clearly exceeded by a massive amount. The main problem here in operation is how to counteract a brake failure.

Freight transport

On the occasion of the opening ceremony, a freight train with containers that had come from Kazakhstan and loaded with wheat was sent on its journey from Baku. The drive from Baku to Akhalkalaki took 40 hours. There the containers were reloaded onto standard gauge wagons, which took nine hours. From there they were transported to Mersin on the Mediterranean Sea , where they arrived on November 4, 2017, after a five-day journey.

According to official announcements, the capacity of the route is designed for a freight volume of 5 million tons . In his opening speech, the Turkish President even spoke of 6.5 million tons per year. By 2030, the transport capacity is to be increased to 17 million tons per year.

Reports from the spring of 2020 show that the continuous goods traffic Baku-Turkey also runs with goods originating from the area east of the Caspian Sea. Even a weekly connection Xi'an - İzmit has been using the connection since May 2020.

passenger traffic

There is currently no continuous passenger traffic over the entire route. The start of this passenger traffic has been announced several times and postponed again; it is currently planned for the end of 2019.

Umspuranlage

The gauging system required for this has meanwhile been set up in Akhalkalaki . A Rafil gauging system was planned .

vehicles

The state railway company of Azerbaijan, Azərbaycan Dəmir Yolları , ordered three passenger trains, each with 10 cars, for transport on the route at a price of 120 million Swiss francs from the Swiss company Stadler Rail . Each train offers space for 246 passengers and consists of:

• A 1st class sleeping car : 8 two-bed compartments, each with its own bathroom and toilet.
• A 1st / 2nd class carriage: 20 beds and a family compartment
• Six 2nd class sleeping cars: 32 beds (usually: 4 beds in the compartment) and a shared bathroom and toilet for the whole car.
• A carriage with a handicapped-accessible compartment, a compartment for the driver and a further four compartments for 2nd class.
• A dining car .

The cars are designed for a top speed of 160 km / h and are equipped with two independent air conditioning systems and vacuum toilets. They also have an emergency power supply that is designed for full 24-hour operation. The vehicles hold the UIC - vehicle gauge and have bogies , the automatic lane changes allow.

The vehicles should be delivered in 2016/2017. After the payment deadlines were not met, Stadler Rail withheld the delivery of vehicles that had already been completed, interrupted production of the vehicles that had not yet been completed and did not start work on those that had not yet started. The cars that had already been completed were parked in Switzerland.

In 2018, Stadler and ADY agreed to cut the order by one train. The first train was delivered from Switzerland to ADY in spring 2019 and tested on the gauge change facility in Achalkalaki. The train then went on to Baku, where the Azerbaijani President, İlham Əliyev , visited it. The second train is to be built at Stadler's Fanipol plant near Minsk in Belarus .

capacity

In his opening speech, the Turkish President said that the goal was to travel to one million a year. Allegedly, the trains should run between Baku and Istanbul. Due to the existing high-speed traffic between Ankara and Istanbul and the fact that there will only be two instead of three trains, it appears more likely to be used on the Baku – Ankara connection.

Further planning

On May 6, 2019, the general directors of the Russian, Turkish and Georgian railways signed an agreement according to which the construction of a second track in Russian broad gauge between Kars and Akhalkalaki is to be examined.

literature

• Brett Forest: The Path of Dreams . In: National Geographic Germany , Issue 10/2010, pp. 114-139, Gruner + Jahr , Hamburg 2010.
• NN: Commissioning of the Baku - Tbilisi - Kars Railway Line . In: OSJD Bulletin 5 (2017). ISSN 2391-9027, pp. 1f.
• Neil Robinson: World Rail Atlas . Vol. 8: The Middle East and Caucasus . 2006. ISBN 954-12-0128-8
• Jürgen Zbinden: The transfer of the first Stadler sleeper train to Azerbaijan . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 8–9 / 2019, Part 1: pp. 414–419; Part 2: ibid., Pp. 593-595; Part 3 ibid. 1/2020, pp. 20-23.

Web links

• M. Alkhazashvili: Britain to China by rail: the Kars-Akhalkalaki railway . In: National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers (RMT) v. September 29, 2006, accessed March 18, 2007.
• Iron Silk Road . Der Standard Online, March 16, 2007.
• Metin Usta: The Possible Effects of the KATB Project over the Caucasus Politics (PDF; 114 kB).

Remarks

1. ↑ There are - depending on the source - slightly different information on the length of the new line: 105 km (NN: Commissioning , p. 1); 110 km ( report from Railway Gazette International of October 30, 2017, reproduced in: HaRakevet 119 (2017), p. 13).
2. ↑ In his opening speech, the Turkish President named the year 2034 for this value ( report from Railway Gazette International of October 30, 2017, reproduced in: HaRakevet 119 (2017), p. 13).
3. ↑ Such a vehicle was shown at Innotrans 2016 (see: mr / schr: The Innotrans 2016 in Berlin . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International (11/2016), pp. 566-575 (568f)).
4. ↑ Track change wheel sets RAFIL / DBAG type V.
5. ↑ This meant approx. 2700 travelers per day. However, the capacity of the three trains commissioned to operate the route is only less than a tenth of this forecast.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Robinson, pp. 50ff.
2. ↑ Robinson, p. 52.
3. ↑ Kazakhstan interested in KATB  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , DVZ.de, February 25, 2007, accessed on January 9, 2011  
4. ^ Message from Railway Gazette International of October 30, 2017, reproduced in: HaRakevet 119 (2017), p. 13.
5. ↑ Robinson, plate 48.
6. ↑ USA not to finance construction of railway, bypassing Armenia ( Memento of the original of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Regnum News Agency, June 16, 2006, accessed March 17, 2007  
7. ^ Tbilisi, Baku Agree on Funding of Regional Railway Link . In: Civil Georgia January 13, 2007, accessed March 17, 2007
8. ↑ Vladimir Socor: Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku Rail Project Soon to Roll Forward ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Eurasia Daily Monitor, January 19, 2007, accessed March 17, 2007 
9. ↑ Баку - Тбилиси - Карс оставляет Армению вне игры? In: ИА REGNUM . ( regnum.ru [accessed January 12, 2018]).
10. ↑ Azerbaijan talks condition for Armenia's possible joining BTK [UPDATE] . In: AzerNews.az . November 2, 2017 ( azernews.az [accessed January 12, 2018]).
11. ↑ Maia Edilashvili: Friendship stretching 556 km to the East and 1441 km to the West ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Georgian Times, February 15, 2007, accessed March 18, 2007 
12. ↑ Zbinden, part 3, p. 20.
13. ↑ Zbinden, part 3, p. 22.
14. ^ NN: Commissioning , p. 1; Report from Railway Gazette International of October 30, 2017, reproduced in: HaRakevet 119 (2017), p. 13.
15. ↑ First freight train on the Baku-Tiflis-Kars railway line leaves the port of Baku . In: presseportal.de . ( presseportal.de [accessed October 31, 2017]).
16. ↑ zbin: Expansion and new line Baku - Tbilisi - Kars officially opened . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 1/2018, pp. 30–32 (32).
17. ↑ Port of Baku: Azerbaijan: First freight train on the Baku – Tbilisi – Kars line leaves the port of Baku (press release). In: Lok Report from October 31, 2017. Accessed: December 17, 2017.
18. ^ NN: Commissioning , p. 2.
19. ^ Message from Railway Gazette International of October 30, 2017, reproduced in: HaRakevet 119 (2017), p. 13.
20. ^ Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Line. railway-technology.com, 2010, accessed December 24, 2011 . 
21. ↑ Angelina Shurganova: Freight traffic in Azerbaijan: New solutions . In: OSJD Bulletin 2/2020, p. 44.
22. ↑ Maersk launches China - Turkey freight service . In: Railway Gazette International of May 5, 2020.
23. ↑ ^{a b c d} Press release of the Azerbaijan Railways (AZD): New passenger route Azerbaijan – Georgia – Turkey . In: OSJD Bulletin 3/2019, p. 46
24. ↑ bac: Stadler's activities in the field of Russian broad gauge . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 2/2018, pp. 79–83 (82f.).
25. ↑ pd / an: sleeping and dining car for Azerbaijan . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 8–9 / 2014, p. 392.
26. ↑ mr: Stadler sleeping cars are waiting for delivery . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 4/2017, p. 188; zbin: Extension and new line Baku - Tbilisi - Kars officially opened . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 1/2018, pp. 30–32 (32).
27. ↑ bac: Stadler's activities in the field of Russian broad gauge . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 2/2018, pp. 79–83 (83).
28. ↑ Zbinden: The transfer .
29. ↑ bac: Stadler's activities in the field of Russian broad gauge . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 2/2018, pp. 79–83 (82f.).
30. ↑ Zbinden: Die Überführung , p. 414.
31. ↑ Port of Baku: Azerbaijan: First freight train on the Baku – Tbilisi – Kars line leaves the port of Baku (press release). In: Lok Report from October 31, 2017. Accessed: December 17, 2017.
32. ^ NN: Commissioning , p. 2.
33. ↑ pd / an: sleeping and dining car for Azerbaijan . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 8–9 / 2014, p. 392.
34. ↑ Zbinden, part 3, p. 21.