Azeri company to plan railway station in Akhalkalaki

Azeri architectural planning company Kontur has won the international tender for drawing up a project plan for the construction of a railway station in the Georgian town of Akhalkalaki, a key station on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line. It will include a siding where the wheels of the railway carriages will be changed.

As is known both Georgian and Azeri railway tracks are of Russian standard gauge, meaning they are wider than the European standard gauge tracks in Turkey. The Akhalkalaki railway station is intended to initially process 5 million tonnes of cargo annually with the prospect of increasing this to 15 million tonnes. The project plan will include the provision of an energy supply, communication systems, alarm and warning systems and other infrastructure for facilitating the transportation of people as well as cargo. Construction of the railway station should begin in 2010 and be finished in a year.