A Viking container train from Ukraine has arrived in the port of Baku, the Azerbaijani Caspian Shipping Company announced in a statement, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
The 32-wagon train is loaded with food and metal products. The train departed from Illichivsk on February 7 and traveled on the route Ukraine-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Central Asia.
On Friday, 12 February, 31 of the container train’s wagons were due to be sent to the port of Turkmenbashi on the Karabakh ferry. The remaining wagon was due to be sent to the port of Aktau.
The Ukrzaliznytsia public railway company recently said that transportation of goods on Viking trains from China to Europe was a possibility. The The relevant protocol was signed during a meeting of the heads of the railways of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine on the issue of creation of competitive tariff conditions for cargo transportation on the Asia-Europe-Asia route, which took place in Odessa on 11 September 2015.
In addition, a container train was test-launched on the on the so-called "New Silk Road" (Ukraine-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan-China) on 15 January. The train arrived in China on the 16th day (in the early hours of 31 January). The route will be competitive in terms of delivery period (the one-way travel time is 10-12 days) and price, compared with the routes that pass through Russia, Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Andrii Pyvovarskyi said.
In addition, Lithuania and Ukraine have signed a memorandum that provides for operation of Viking trains on the new Silk Road route.
The Viking rail project was launched in 2003. The participants in the project are Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and, from 2012, Bulgaria. The total length of the Illichivsk (Ukraine)-Minsk (Belarus)-Draugyste (Lithuania) route is 1,766 kilometers.
