First BTK freight train reaches Kars

The first freight train running along the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway reached Kars on Nov.3.

ADY Express , a subsidiary of Azerbaijan Railways, told Trend on Nov.3 that the first operation on cargo transhipment on the BTK rail line took place at the Akhalkalaki station.

"From Kars, the train has already left in the direction of Mersin (in the south of Turkey), this road will take about 40 hours," the company said.

The train, consisting of 32 containers loaded with grain, travelled from Baku to Kars in 40 hours. The train departed from Kazakhstan Oct. 24. Its final destination will be the Turkish Mersin.

The opening of the BTK railway took place in Baku Oct.30.

The first train departed from the Azerbaijani port of Alat after its inauguration by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. In order not to miss such an historic event, the leaders and high-ranking officials of a number of countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan attended the solemn ceremony.

The BTK railway was constructed on the basis of a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. The railway’s peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.
(Trend.az)