Azerbaijan Railways CJSC plans to start laying rail lines in mid-August for the construction of a railroad section from Azerbaijan’s Astara station to the border with Iran as part of the International North-South Transportation Corridor, a spokesperson for Azerbaijan Railways said.
The INSTC is meant to connect northern Europe with southeastern Asia. It will serve as a link for connecting the railroads of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia. At the initial stage, it is planned to transport 5 million tons of cargo via the corridor per year and to increase this figure to over 10 million tons in the future.
Nadir Azmammadov added that excavation work on the 8.3-kilometer section of the railroad is currently underway, Trend News Agency reported.
“Nearly 100 units of equipment have been attracted to the territory with the difficult terrain,” he said. “As many as 370 of 510,000 cubic meters of sand, gravel and crushed stone have been laid at the railroad section so far.”
Azmammadov noted that 11 of 14 culverts have been constructed for sewerage, the work on concrete laying, as well as the transfer of water, electricity and gas lines continues.
“As many as 315 different facilities, including 10 residential buildings, which are designed to be transferred, are located on the territory, and the transferring process of 104 facilities has been currently completed,” he said.
The spokesperson noted that the construction of the railroad bridge on the border of Azerbaijan and Iran over the Astarachay River with a length of 82.5 meters is continuing.
Azmammadov said 32 piles at a depth of 32 meters have been installed, piers for two spans of the bridge built here since the beginning of the construction and two more piers are under construction.
It is planned to commission the railroad section from Azerbaijan’s Astara station to the border with Iran and the railroad bridge before the end of 2016.
Last week, Tehran and Baku drafted a plan for financing and implementing a railroad project connecting Iran’s two northern cities of Rasht and Astara in a meeting between Iran’s deputy minister of roads and urban development, Asghar Fakhrieh-Kashan, and Azerbaijan’s deputy economy minister, Sahil Babayev, in Baku.
Fakhrieh-Kashan added that the plan will pave the way for signing a contract “within the next few months” on joint investment in the construction of the railroad, which is one of the missing links in the INSTC.
According to Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi, Rasht-Astara railroad, which will have a capacity of transporting 10 million tons of goods and three million passengers per year upon inauguration, requires $1 billion, half of which is to be funded by Azerbaijan.
