Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.24
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Swiss Stadler Rail Group plans to start the delivery of sleeper coaches to Azerbaijan for passenger transportation via Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway in 2018, Trend learned from the company.
The coaches will be delivered by the request of Azerbaijan Railways closed joint-stock company.
Stadler representative noted that until now, no car has been delivered, as some issues of financing of the project are being solved.
“We expect the closing [of financing issues] until the end of this year. Stadler has nearly 10 cars already produced and will continue the process of homologation of the sleeper coaches as soon as the financing issue is solved. The delivery of the sleeper coaches can start only in 2018,” said the company representative.
Under the contract between Azerbaijan Railways CJSC and Stadler, a total of 30 sleeper coaches will be produced for the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.
The BTK railway has been constructed on the basis 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.
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