Baku ring line

Back in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, there was a railway connection between Baku, Sumgait and suburban villages, but since 1985 the road has not been repaired. In 2015, the reconstruction of the Baku-Balajara-Sumgait ring railway line was completed with a length of 42 km, and in 2019 the Baku-Sabunchi line.

Initially, it was planned to use modernized electric trains of the ER2 series on the line, however, at the beginning of 2015, the Swiss company Stadler offered the leadership of Azerbaijan roads its new two-story electric trains of the ESH2 series, made for Russia. This was due to the fact that after increasing the Euro against the ruble, the Moscow company Aeroexpress , which ordered these trains, refused to purchase part of them, and the manufacturer was forced to look for a new customer among the operators of 1520 mm gauge railways with DC voltage electrification 3 kV. As a result, on May 13, 2015, a contract was signed between the Azerbaijani roads and Stadler in Baku for the supply of five four-car electric trains ESh2 worth about 70 million euros (14 million per train). In this regard, the first two Belarusian trains with numbers 003 and 009, originally intended for Aeroexpress and painted in red-burgundy, were repainted in May already in May and sent to Azerbaijan ^[2] .

The Sumgait line was solemnly opened on June 3, 2015 by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev ^[3] . On September 12, 2015, the first electric train departed from Baku to Sumgayit, President Ilham Aliyev drove a train over the road. Then, 4 years later, on May 21, 2019, President Ilham Aliyev attended the opening of the Sabunchi railway station building and the eponymous line. ^[4] .

The fare depends on the distance. So, on the way to Sumgait in a business-class carriage it is 1.6 manat, economy class - 1 manat. Toward Sabunchi, the fare costs 0.5 manat. If there is no plastic card, tickets are sold at ticket offices and are controlled at the entrance and exit by turnstiles, tickets for business-class passengers are additionally checked by controllers. Compared with other CIS countries (including Russia), the cost of travel on the BCL is much lower even at large distances ^[5] .

Estimated throughput - from 30 to 35 thousand passengers per day. The average train speed is 63 km / h. Trains run along the Baku-Balajari-Sumgait and Baku-Sabunchi sections (42 and 13.5 km, respectively, travel time 40 and 15 minutes), in the future it is planned to close the entire ring road and the opening of the Baku-Zabrat-Sumgait section (55.6 km, planned travel time is 60 minutes) ^[6] .

As of 2017, on the Baku-Sumgait line with intermediate stops Balajara and Khirdalan, eleven pairs of trains per day run as suburban trains. The flight numbers are 6001-6022: even-numbered trains depart from Sumgait, odd-numbered trains depart from Baku. Moreover, the morning three pairs of flights 6001-6006 run only on weekdays ^[7] . Electric trains from Baku leave at 08:00, 08:30, 08:55, 16:00, 17:30, 18:05, 18:30, 18:45, 19:10, 19:40 and 20:30; from Sumgait - at 07:10, 07:30, 07:45, 08:00, 08:50, 09:17, 09:50, 16:55, 18:18, 18:50 and 19:30 ^{[8] [9]} . The schedule of trains changes depending on the fact of some repair work or public events (for example, the schedule was changed during the European Games in 2015 ).

Five double-decker four-car electric trains of the ESH2 series with numbers 003, 008, 009, 019 and 020 are used as rolling stock. These trains were developed by the Stadler Rail Group and manufactured at the Belarusian Stadler Minsk plant. Trains are white in color with a black horizontal strip on the sides between the rows of windows and gray stripes in the window area, and the doors and the fringing of the black strip are dark golden in color ^[10] .

The passenger capacity of the four-car train is 919 people with 396 seats. One of the head cars has 84 seats of business class and 4 standard classes, the other has 120 seats of the standard class (including 8 folding) and backs for disabled people with a ramp for lifting / lowering wheelchairs to the first floor, intermediate motor cars have 94 seats of standard class. The main part of the seats is located on the first and second floors of the electric train, a small part (4 or 8 per car) is located in the vestibule zones located between the main floors with access to high platforms.

For the convenience of passengers, cars are equipped with air conditioning, electrical outlets, sun blinds on the windows. There are toilets in the carriages of the train, one of which in the head carriage of the standard class has an increased size for the convenience of disabled passengers. There is also a Wi-Fi Internet access point ^[11] .