First Freight Train Route from Ulyanovsk to Azerbaijan Since USSR Era To Begin In September

For the first time a goods train will deliver products directly from Ulyanovsk to Baku and then to Iran’s Astara in less than a month, the head of the region Alexey Russkikh said.

Ulyanovsk, the administrative centre of the Ulyanovsk region, located on the banks of the Volga and Sviyaga rivers, is a major diversified industrial centre of Russia’s aviation and automotive industries. As a multimodal transit hub, the city has a large river port, railways, roads and a large cargo airport, which serve Russian and international cargo traffic to Kazakhstan, Central and South-East Asia, Europe and China. A direct railway connection with Azerbaijan and the Iranian port of Astara will allow Ulyanovsk to firmly enter the international transport corridor ‘North – South’, which provides transport links between Russia and Iranian ports of the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf with access to the Middle East, East Africa, India and South-East Asia.

The first export train Ulyanovsk – Baku – Astara will include at least 70 wagons, in addition, the issue of back-loading the train with goods produced in Azerbaijan, Iran and neighbouring countries is being discussed, the head of the Ulyanovsk region said.

‘This is the western railway corridor of the Middle Volga – Caspian Sea – Persian Gulf logistics route,’ the governor said. According to him, the train will consist of wagons of various modifications, including covered tanks, platforms, and bunker-type wagons.

‘Each train is designed to transport 3.5 thousand tonnes of various products – agro-industrial products, industrial goods, woodworking products and others. We expect that over 200,000 tonnes of products will be exported and imported via this route during the year,’ Russkikh said.

The construction of the railway connecting Rasht and Astara in Iran, which will be part of the North-South International Transport Corridor, will be completed in 2027. The railway gauge in Russia and Azerbaijan is 152 cm, while in Iran it is 143.5 cm, and the Iranian section of the railway from Rasht to Astara still meets Iranian standards. Therefore, the train will initially only reach the Azerbaijan-Iran border, where goods will be reloaded onto trucks for transit to Iran and its Persian Gulf ports.

Ulyanovsk has recently introduced a regular railway container service to China (via Kazakhstan), and there are plans to launch a direct railway freight service from Ulyanovsk to Turkmenistan with access to Uzbekistan, which will further strengthen trade ties between the Russian Volga region and Asia.