By  Trend

Swiss Stadler Rail Group will deliver the first batch of cars to Azerbaijan for the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway in March 2019, Matthias Stöhr, sales director for Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine at the company told Trend.

"The cars are now in the stage of final assembly. One car is already finished and is used now for the type testing. The cars were not yet delivered," said Stöhr.

He noted that according to the actual time schedule, the first 10 cars will be delivered in March 2019.

"A train will consist of 10 cars. First 10 will be delivered in 2019, the second 10 in 2020," added Stöhr.

Earlier, Chairman of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC Javid Gurbanov said that the passenger transportation via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will begin in 2019.

He noted that the passenger transportation will be launched after receiving passenger trains ordered from Stadler.

"I recently met with representatives of Stadler, and, they said, the trains will be delivered in early 2019," Gurbanov said.

The official opening ceremony of the BTK railway was held in Baku Oct. 30 last year. The BTK railway was 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.