"IRON" PROJECTS

The large-scale project to modernize the country's railway sector, which has been carried out for nearly four years, has entered a new stage. Not long ago, CJSC Azerbaijan Railways completed radical reconstruction of the main portion of the 317-km Baku-Boyuk Kasik railroad. And soon Azerbaijan Railways will complete the modernization of railways that link Baku and Sumqayit. The rail service to the most populous satellite city of the metropolitan area will optimize the transport logistics and reduce traffic jams in the northern direction.

Westerly direction

In recent years, Azerbaijan has carried out extensive work to expand the capacity of the Azerbaijani railway system in the westerly direction, taking into account the capacity of the new railway corridor Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK), which will be introduced by the end of this year and become an important component of the Europe-Caucasus-Asia project (TRACECA). In June 2011, President Ilham Aliyev approved the "State Programme on the Development of the Railway System in Azerbaijan in 2010-2014", which was developed by the Ministry of Transport. The repair and modernization of railroads in the westerly direction was financed both by the state, which provided about 650m manats, by a loan of 215m dollars allocated by Czech EximBank and a World Bank loan of 450m dollars.

The first part of the large-scale project envisages the modernization of the railway track infrastructure - a 317-km stretch of the 500-km track linking Baku with the Boyuk Kasik point located at the Georgian border. The main objective of the capital-intensive project is to increase the capacity of the railway and introduce a new alarm system fully automating the traffic. As a result, it proved possible to increase the speed of traffic in the westerly direction from 60-80 to 100-120 km per hour, which will reduce the delivery time of goods and passengers by almost one-third. The bulk of the work on the project as a whole was completed at the end of the year before. In the subsequent period, Azerbaijan Railway experts overhauled individual sections and branches adjacent to the main road in the westerly direction. In particular, the reconstruction of the 10-km Haciqabul-Mugan section ended in April, and in May and July, repair work was carried out on the Pirsaat-Haciqabul, Agstafa-Poylu railway tracks, etc.

The readiness of the Baku-Boyuk Kasik section was confirmed by the results of tests carried out earlier this year. The pilot train was brought directly to the border station: the track was recognized as totally ready for use and the related logistics infrastructure - for intensive transportation. Improving the quality of the railway line and automating the process of train control, Azerbaijan Railways achieved its main goal - increasing the capacity of the railroad in the westerly direction. The need for high speeds and great capacity in the westerly direction is required by the new trans-regional Silk Wind route, the active operation of which will be launched by Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia and Kazakhstan next year. The logistics of this route is based on the use of the capacity of the BTK railway commissioned at the end of this year and the capacity of the Yeni Baki new international sea port.

In early August of this year, the first test train loaded with 82 containers of caustic soda travelled by the Silk Wind. Travelling on the Shihezi-Dostyk-Aktau-Kesla route and covering 4,768 km through China, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, the train arrived at its destination in just a week. For comparison, such cargos were previously transported by alternative routes for 25-40 days through the ports of Bandar Abbas and Poti. Participants in the project plan to send a second container train by the China - Kazakhstan - Azerbaijan - Georgia - Turkey route in September.

According to experts, in the near future, the new project will ensure a significant growth in the cargo turnover between Turkey, the South Caucasus and Central Asia as well as China, first of all, by the rail and ferry transportation of multimodal container cargos. With the commissioning of BTK, Azerbaijan and its partners alone are planning to increase the turnover by 6-7m tonnes per year, and eventually, transit cargo flows might reach 17m tonnes.

High-speed Baku-Sumqayit

It is noteworthy that the modernization projects of Azerbaijan Railways cover not only regional initiatives. For example, in early March of this year, the Ministry of Transport and Azerbaijan Railways started implementing another component of the state programme on the development of the railway system in Azerbaijan. It provides for the overhaul of the 63-km Baku-Sumqayit-Xirdalan line, as well as the purchase of 10 modern electric trains. The main work is being carried out at the expense of the Azerbaijan Railways, but considering that the entire project will need about 200m dollars, it is possible that international donors will be involved.

Over the past six months, LLC D?miryolservis, the contractor of the project and a structural subdivision of Azerbaijan Railways, has reconstructed more than 61 km of the railroad. And just recently, the construction of a new connecting branch with a length of 1.65 km started, and at the first stage, turnouts will be installed in this area. This bypass branch will secure the movement of passenger trains to the Sumqayit station without entering the main station of the city.

The process of dismantling the old building of the Sumqayit passenger station also started recently, while some auxiliary work at railway hauls and stations along the Baku-Sumqayit railway line is about to be completed.

The early completion of this work was hampered by a number of subjective factors, including the need to clear the land along the Baku-Sumqayit railway line where many illegal buildings have been built. However, this problem is being solved as well: for example, in the process of disassembling the oil passenger station of Sumqayit, the 40 IDP families living here were resettled and each family was paid about 30,000 manats in compensation.

One way or another, LLC D?miryolservis experts managed to solve the main task of modernizing the Baku-Sumqayit railway section. Large-scale digging work - levelling of the terrain and rectification of the railroad tracks along the entire area - made it possible to increase the speed of trains. The replacement of the old rails, sleepers, upgrading of the alarm systems, power supplies and communications, etc. also helped to achieve this target.

As a result, upon completion of all work, the average speed will be 80-100 km/h, so passengers will be able to get from Sumqayit to the centre of Baku in just 40 minutes, Azerbaijan railways said in its report. In the past, electric trains on the Baku-Sumqayit-Bilacari line required one hour and 22 minutes to reach the destination, which was three times longer.

The presence of such an alternative, in turn, will significantly relieve the Baku-Samur highway, especially the Sulutapa section, where there are constant traffic jams at peak times. This is an extremely important issue, as today the inhabitants of "the city of chemists" can get to the capital only through the northern entrance to Baku. Moreover, the two alternative paths leading to Sumqayit - the Masazir highway and the relatively narrow road through the village of Saray - eventually also lead to the Sulutapa section, where long traffic jams often occur.

The project to resume the rail service between Sumqayit and Baku also provides for the purchase of modern and comfortable passenger trains. In particular, Azerbaijan Railways has signed with Stadler Rail Group an agreement for the purchase of five KISS trains. For now the country has already received three electric trains produced by Stadler Minsk, a subsidiary of the company. Consisting of four carriages, the double-decker trains able to take 919 passengers and have 396 seats, 84 of which belong to the business class. The carriages of the new electric carriage are equipped with air conditioning, and in the future, the carriages will be provided with access to the Internet through Wi-Fi access points. In order to ensure uninterrupted traffic between the capital and the "city of chemists", Azerbaijan Railways has also bought five overhauled trains in Riga.

As for the cost of travel on the new train, this issue will soon be resolved by the Tariff Council. However, according to preliminary data the estimated prices may reach 0.5 or 0.7 manats.

The chairman of CJSC Azerbaijan Railways, Cavid Qurbanov, noted in the spring of this year that the rehabilitation of the Baku-Sumqayit-Xirdalan railway - is part of the project to restore the Abseron ring railway. It is planned to put this section in operation in September. And in the subsequent year it is planned to start the reconstruction of the railway infrastructure in the Sumqayit - Novxani - Pirsagi - Zabrat - Baku direction.

In short, as you can see, the railways are actively involved in addressing the global problem of traffic jams in Baku. Maybe, at least these projects will produce visible results in this sphere...