Pilot route for transportation via Akhalkalaki railway junction launched

2026-04-17

According to the Transport Corridor Research Center, a pilot route for transportation via the Akhalkalaki railway junction from Europe to Central Asia via the Middle Corridor has been launched.

According to them, as a result of the introduction of tariff preferences by the TITR Association, 11 units of Swap Body type railway wagon-platforms were sent from Belgium to Kyrgyzstan in early April of this year using the Turkish Railways, then Baku-Tbilisi-Kars and the Middle Corridor.

“The pilot shipment is actually a practical implementation of an innovative logistics solution for both the Middle Corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars section,” says Levan Lomsadze, founder and director of GeoRail-Consulting.

TCRC explains that the pilot shipment was carried out along a new logistics route - in particular, a freight train consisting of 11 wagons (these wagons were included in a single freight train with other wagons) departed from the Turkish Kyosekoy terminal near Istanbul. After passing the Turkish railway, the body was reloaded from the European 1435 mm gauge to the 1520 mm standard wagon platform using a bridge crane in Akhalkalaki.

The Transport Corridor Research Center notes that the “Kyosekoy Terminal” near Istanbul is a powerful railway logistics hub in Turkey, which is designed to form block trains in the directions of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China.

Unlike a classic container, a swap body is a removable body equipped with folding/unfolding legs. It is less used for direct transportation on a ship and is mainly adapted for rail + road transportation.

“The innovative logistics solution for transporting pilot components from Europe to Central Asia has practical results for the middle corridor.

Georgia is becoming an active and strategic player in intermodal transportation in the corridor, attracting new “reverse” cargo flows from Europe to Central Asia.

At the local level, the commissioning of the less busy Marabda-Kartsakhi section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is gaining relevance. In addition, the Akhalkalaki railway station is gaining additional attractiveness and has the opportunity, together with a powerful transshipment hub, to develop into a logistics center in the near future.

The commissioning of a new logistics route contributes to improving connectivity between regions, and the demand for Swap body carrier wagons is also increasing.

In addition, under the conditions of innovative transportation, the operating speed of trains on the Marabda-Kartsakhi section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars highway will increase, which will coincide with the acceleration of reloading operations at the Akhalkalaki junction and the synchronization of customs processes,” explains Levan Lomsadze, Director of GeoRail-Consulting.

According to the assessment of the Transport Corridor Research Center, the imbalance of cargo flow movement is currently considered an insurmountable problem of the Middle Corridor, in particular, the volume of cargo flows from Europe to Asia through the Middle Corridor significantly lags behind the volume of shipments from Asia to Europe. In fact, there is an acute shortage of “reverse” cargo from Europe to Asia on the Europe-Asia-Europe transport axis.

“In the conditions of asymmetric transportation of cargo flows in the direction of Europe - Asia - Europe using the Middle Corridor, most of the loaded containers return empty to their destination via the land route after unloading, which significantly increases transportation costs and reduces the competitiveness of the Middle Corridor compared to other alternative routes.

According to data from 2025, the number of containers loaded on the Caspian Sea from Aktau to Baku was 2.5 times higher than container shipments from Baku to Aktau. Such a ratio indicates the imbalance of transportation and the lack of a “reverse” flow from the European part.

For comparison, in 2025, for the first time in the last 15 years, the number of container block trains from Europe to China using the Northern Corridor passing through Russia exceeded the number of block trains from China to Europe.

The existence of a reverse flow in the northern direction is important for any corridor, first of all, to increase the profit margin of transportation and, if necessary, to implement tariff discounts.

It was precisely the elimination of the existing imbalance that led to the decision taken in March 2026 by the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) Association on additional tariff preferences for container shipments from the European part to the East.

In particular, the countries of the Middle Corridor agreed to apply a 50% discount on containers loaded from the ports of Batumi and Poti to Kazakhstan and China.

Similarly, a 33% discount was applied to containers loaded from Turkey to Kazakhstan, China and Central Asian countries via Kazakhstan.

Naturally, the purpose of the decision taken by the TITR Association was to stimulate container shipments from Europe to Asia via the Middle Corridor and eliminate the existing “imbalance”, - the information released by TCRC is noted.

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