The first train on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway connecting Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey will run for the first time on October 30. The railway will be opened by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to the administration of the Government of Georgia the opening ceremony will take place in Baku and is being organized by the Azerbaijan Government.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway covers a 254 km long road, out of which 29 km of track are completely new.

The new railway will have the potential to transfer one million people a year and on the first stage to transfer goods worth 6.5 million tonnes. Eventually the carrying capacity of the railway will increase up to 15 million tonnes.

The railway will start working in 2018. It will transfer both goods and passengers.

The development of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project started in 2007 and construction started in 2008.

As part of the project, on the territory of Georgia a new railway was constructed from the town of Akhalkalaki to the border of Turkey.

The testing of the road first started in 2015. The project was slowed due to a slow pace of construction of the road from the Turkish side.

The transportation of goods by railway in Georgia has reduced by 40% in the last five years. In 2012 the railway transported 20 million tonnes of goods, whereas in 2016 - 11.9 million tonnes.