BAKU, Azerbaijan, Mar.12
By Sadraddin Aghjayev – Trend:
New trains produced by the Swiss company Stadler will be delivered to Azerbaijan in 2022, Dina Kazakevich, chief of the advertising and marketing communications bureau under the company’s Belarusian affiliate Stadler Minsk CJSC, told Trend on Mar.12.
Kazakevich reminded that in 2019, Azerbaijan Railways CJSC and Swiss Stadler Rail AG signed a new contract for the supply of 10 more single-deck FLIRT trains (Fast Light Innovative Regional Train).
According to her, four of the trains will be diesel-electric ones for interregional routes, three more electric trains (also for interregional routes), and three more for regional routes.
"This is not only the first FLIRT train for Azerbaijan, but also the first diesel-electric rolling stock. According to the contract, the first trains will be delivered to Azerbaijan in 2022. Now work on design and procurement of the components are underway," she said.
Besides, Kazakevich noted that over the past two years, Stadler supplied 19 fully-equipped wagons from Switzerland and Belarus to Azerbaijan.
she said the first sleeping cars were delivered to Azerbaijan in 2019 from Switzerland and in 2020 from Belarus. The contract was signed for supplies of 20 sleeping cars.
"Since the operation of this rolling stock is planned on the Baku-Tbilisi-Istanbul line, Stadler has specially developed wagon bogies with sliding wheels for continuous communication between Georgia and Turkey," she pointed out adding that owing to this technology, cars can be operated both in the CIS countries, where the railway gauge is 1520 millimeters, and in Europe with a gauge of 1435 millimeters.
"The trains consist of five different types of carriages with high-quality interior design and various amenities for comfortable travel both during the day and at night. For the first time on sleeping cars, we have applied a patented sliding step at the entrance - a combination of ladders for five different platform heights," she said. “In 2015 and 2018, the Azerbaijani railway operator ordered KISS (comfortable, innovative, sprint-capable suburban train) double-decker trains (9 in total), which are in daily operation today.”
“Since 2019, a large-scale infrastructure project has begun to be implemented in Azerbaijan, within which many railway lines are switched to alternating current (25 kV). As a customer-oriented company, Stadler responded in a timely manner to innovations and retrofitted KISS double-deck trains, which were originally designed for direct current, with the ability to operate in alternating current conditions,” Kazakevich said.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @agdzhaev