Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan Railways will operate in enhanced mode in connection with the first-ever European Games scheduled for June 12-28 in Baku.

Nadir Azmammadov, the company’s spokesman told Trend that during the Games the security system in the railway stations, bridges, passages as well as freight and passenger trains will operate in enhanced mode.

“Train crews, instructors and its personnel, involved in international directions were instructed about the rules of passage procedures at the checkpoints. During the Games announcements in passenger stations of Baku, Sumgait, and Ganja railway stations will be broadcast in Azerbaijani, Russian and English languages,” the spokesman said.

Earlier in May, Azerbaijan Railways Company and Switzerland’s Stadler Rail Group signed a contract on the purchase of five KISS double-decker trains.

Azmammadov added that new double-decker trains will operate from Baku Railway Station to Keroglu Railway Station, near the Baku Olympic Stadium.

The first two new trains, consist of four cars will be able to accommodate a total of 919 people. There will be 396 seats in each train, 84 of which are business class seats.

The contract, which is estimated at 60-70 million euros will be paid to Stadler Rail Group within 20 years with the help of the revenues generated from passenger transportation, Javid Gurbanov, the Azerbaijan Railways chairman said earlier.

The rest of the trains will be delivered to Azerbaijan by late January 2016. After the completion of the European Games, all five trains are planned to be used on the Baku-Sumgayit railway.

The railway which runs across 43 kilometers is now under reconstruction. The Baku-Sumgayit railway will open up access to the industrial city located some 30 km north of the capital in 40 minutes.

Baku 2015 is an exciting and innovative multi-sport event that will brought together more than 6,000 athletes across Europe over 17 days.

The athletes will compete in 20 sports, some 16 of which are Olympic and four -- non-Olympic.

Twelve of the sports will offer qualification opportunities for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Those sports include Archery, Athletics, Boxing, Cycling, Judo, Shooting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Triathlon, Volleyball and Wrestling.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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