New Railway Baku-Tiblisi-Kars (Turkey)

[lissie45]

OK so I'm a train nerd but this is interesting! Sounds like there is going to be a new railway connecting Georgia and Turkey - coming on stream middle of this year https://www.railwaynews.net/baku-tbilis ... -2017.html railway We plan on being in Georgia in October so if it's open by then will definitely be trying it out.

Kars already has a daily connection to Ankara and onto Istanbul

[steven]

We will wait and see, this railway line has a storied history. First time they said it was going to be finished in the summer was in 2010

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku%E2%8 ... rs_railway

Summarizing updates at Train travel in Georgia.

[lissie45]

LOL - yeah but 7 years later that's gotta be a reasonable buffer surely?? It would be fun to do if it really does open

[Uzh]

And if they ever finished the line, that doesn't means there will be a passenger transport. This railway is primarly build for freight-trains.

[lissie45]

I definitely saw talk that it would include passengers - no evidence that its actually running though

[Mike9999]

I asked one of my Turkish friends if this has been open yet, was told no.

That being said, are there any direct bus lines to Georgia from Kars? I desperately want to see the ruins at Ani but don't want to budget days of my limited time to have to backtrack to move on to Georgia. There is quite a frustrating lack of information on transport from Kars.

[steven]

No direct transport. It will take some time to get there, but I also cannot fill you in on the details sadly. If you go, let us know so we can fill in that black hole of information!

[Chris]

Hi Mike,
I've been there in March of this year, arriving in Kars by the "Dogu Ekspresi" from Ankara. Although I hitchhiked onwards, I remember seeing a Marshrutka at the Vale border saying "Kars-Borjomi-Tbilisi". And I think I read/heard somewhere that it's a daily service...

[steven]

An update on the BTK. It's open, but actually, it's not yet open.

Open! http://www.eurasianet.org/node/85776
Best to wait until 2018...http://www.eurasianet.org/node/86326

Sleeping cars for a planned Istanbul-Baku service have already been delivered, but the service is not yet in operation. Should happen in 2018, though.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/trac ... route.html

[seysearles]

Does anyone know if this route is operating properly now (January 2018)? We will be in Tbilisi in March and want to try to traverse across to Cappadocia while we are there. Interested to know if anyone has made the train journey if they have anything to share about it.