Stadler develops project on passenger car plant
By Aynur Jafarova
The Swiss company Stadler is developing a project on the construction of a passenger car plant in Azerbaijan's second largest city, Ganja.
The news was announced by Trend Agency quoting Azerbaijan Railways LTD's press service director Nadir Azmammadov as saying on February 12.
He said the plant will allow for the construction and rebuilding of passenger wagons.
The passenger cars of Azerbaijan Railways are currently repaired abroad, particularly in Ukraine and Russia, due to the lack of the necessary infrastructure.
The construction of a new plant which will be established on the basis of the wagon depot in Ganja is expected to start in 2014.
A meeting between the representatives of Azerbaijani Railways and the Swiss company will be held in the near future, and the details of the cooperation will be discussed at the meeting, Azmammadov added.
The sides will also discuss the details of receiving passenger wagons which will be used after the launch of the new Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway.
The BTK railway is a regional rail link project that connects Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey.
The total length of the BTK is 826 kilometers (about 513 miles). After commissioning the railway, mutual trade between Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey will increase significantly and the total volume will exceed $ 10 billion per year.
The first pilot train will run via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway at the end of 2014, Azerbaijani Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov said recently.
The State Statistics Committee reported that Azerbaijan produced 326 passenger cars in the first six months of 2013, 3.4 times more than the same period in 2012.
The Swiss Stadler Rail Group, with its ten sites in Bussnang, Altenrhein, Winterthur (Switzerland), Berlin (Germany), Siedlce (Poland), Pusztaszabolcs, Szolnok (Hungary), Czech Republic (Prague), Italy (Meran), and Algiers (Algeria), is focusing on regional and suburban service markets, regional express railway service, and streetcars.
Stadler Rail has positioned itself as a supplier, complementing global rail vehicle builders such as Alstom, Bombardier, and Siemens.