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Georgian Railway (tr) is the national railway company of Georgia.
A vital artery linking the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, it sits on the shortest route between Europe and Central Asia. Built to standard Russian gauge, at present the fully electrified mainline of the Georgian Railway is 1,323.9 km (total: 1,576 km) in length, consisting of 1,422 bridges, 32 tunnels, 22 passenger and 114 . In 2017, Georgian Railways passenger ridership was 2,684,000, of which 100,000 were international passengers, the rest domestic.Nana Bolashvili, Andreas Dittmann, Lorenz King, Vazha Neidze (eds.): National Atlas of Georgia, 138 pages, Steiner Verlag, 2018,
From this central spine, the railway network expanded with links to: Rioni River to Kutaisi (1877), Rioni-Tkibuli (1887), Zestaponi to Chiatura (1895). The Tbilisi to Baku line became operational in 1883, allowing transportation of Azerbaijan oil through the port of Batumi. In 1899, the Kars–Gyumri–Tbilisi railway connection between Georgia and Armenia was established. The Khashuri to Borjomi link was built in 1894, with the Borjomi to Bakuriani narrow-gauge line operational from 1902, to serve the higher level skiing community. The Kakheti railway branch line was completed in 1915.
The second major development of Georgian railways was due to rapid industrialisation and need for better distribution of agricultural products, including tea, citrus and wine produce. This resulted in the construction of the branch lines to: Natanebi-Ozurgeti (1924); Brotseula-Tskaltubo (1934), Senaki-Ingiri-Gali (1930), Gali-Ochamchire-Sokhumi (1938), Gori-Tskhinvali (1940). The construction of the Sokhumi-Adler allowing direct connection to the Russian railway network started during World War II, and was in full operation by 1949.
The Marabda to Akhalkalaki line opened on 31 December 1986.
The rail connection between Kars and Tbilisi via Gyumri (Alexandropol, Leninakan) that began in 1889 ended in 1993 with the closing of the Turkish-Armenian border.
On August 16, 1932, for the first time in the USSR, the first electric traction train ran in the Surami pass. The General Electric Company produced the initial eight electric locomotives of Class S for the service, followed by an additional 21 Class Ss built by the Kolomna and Dinamo works between 1932 and 1934. By November 1967 all Georgian railway was electrified, including the Borjomi-Bakuriani narrow-gauge line. (Some lines are no longer electrically operated due to political and economic instability and war, particularly in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.)
Post World War II, from 1946 the USSR army engineers with the prospect of connection to their system introduced modern communications, automatisation and Automatic Block Signalling systems. This was followed by the introduction of on train and guard radio communication systems, a process which was completed by 1949.
In 2009 Georgian Railway took delivery of the first of an order of eight inter-city EMUs produced by CSR Nanjing Puzhen Rolling Stock, China, at a cost of US$6M each. The 3 kV dc trains have a maximum speed of 130 km/h and each four-car set seats a total of 300 passengers in first and second class accommodation.
In 2016 four double-decker electric trains, model ESh2, of the Swiss company Stadler Rail were ordered at a cost of US$11M each. The 3 kV DC trains have a maximum speed of 160 km/h and each four-car set seats a total of 530 passengers in business class, first and second class accommodation.
As of 2022, there were 176 locomotives and 4,469 freight cars in service.
The lines located in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not under the control of the Georgian Railway. Lines from Nikozi to Tskhinvali (5 km) and from Ochamchire to Enguri are not in use; much of the track and overhead on these two lines have been metal theft, and stations such as Gali have been destroyed or heavily damaged. Lines from Psou River to Ochamchire and from Ochamchire to Tkvarcheli are operated by separatist Abkhazian Railways.
The railway company was restructured in the same year, and the general manager became subordinate to a supervisory board. From June 2004 until October 2005 David Onoprishvili, a former finance minister and a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, was general manager.
As part of a modernization program, 2,445 employees were Layoff, while wages for remaining employees were increased by about 17 percent. Tariffs for goods (freight) transport were lowered, while modernized, Air conditioning rail cars and express services were launched for passengers, including four Stadler passenger trains. A program of new and renovated station buildings commenced in 2006. The station building of the Tbilisi central station, excluding the rail infrastructure, was reconstructed and officially inaugurated in May 2010. The stations Makhinjauri (a suburb of Batumi) and Kobuleti also received new station buildings.
The long Zestaponi–Moliti–Khashuri section (“Gorges” section) is a part of the main Georgian railway line across mountaineous terrain, with very steep gradient and tight curves. The track alignment imposes very low speeds on the line, and it leads to various operational problems. Currently it takes ca. 1.5 hours for a passenger train to cover the section, and much longer for freight trains because of brakes overheating. For this reason, the company is modernizing the section in order to increase capacity, reduce travel time, and improve safety as well as railway operation. Along this section of track several new tunnels, of which the new ca. T9 tunnel will be the longest rail tunnel in Georgia,
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