Azerbaijan
Sefer azeri / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
Azerbaijan sits on the boundary between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, 86,600 km² with about 10.2 million people and its capital at Baku, on a peninsula jutting into the Caspian Sea. Russia's republic of Dagestan lies to the north, Georgia to the north-west, Armenia and Turkey to the west and Iran to the south; the Nakhchivan exclave is separated from the rest of the country by Armenian territory. The Greater and Lesser Caucasus enclose a broad central lowland where the Kura runs down to the sea, and it is on that lowland that the railway and most of the population lie.
Rail here was built for oil and it still shows. The network is 2,918 km of 1,520 mm Russian broad gauge, of which 815 km is double track and 1,272 km electrified at 3 kV DC, run by the state company Azerbaijan Railways. Rail carries about a sixth of the country's freight. The historic trunk route is the Transcaucasus line west towards Tbilisi and the Black Sea, completed to Baku in 1883; once it was open, oil trains ran from Baku to Poti for shipping on.
Rail journeys in Azerbaijan
Good to know
What is the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway?
A corridor built to join the Caspian to the Turkish network. The part everyone writes about is the newest section, from Georgia into Turkey: it opened for cargo in October 2017 and remains dedicated to freight, so it does not carry passengers. What did return is the international service between Azerbaijan and Georgia, reinstated on 26 May 2026. The distinction matters, and most accounts blur it.
Can foreign visitors take the train to Georgia?
Only some. Azerbaijan's land borders have been closed under a special quarantine regime since March 2020, extended most recently to 1 October 2026, and Azerbaijan Railways states that citizens of countries without a visa-free travel regime with Azerbaijan may not travel to Georgia by rail. An Azerbaijani e-visa is not a visa-free regime, so most western passport holders cannot use the sleeper while the regime stands. Flights are unaffected.
Why was the railway to Tbilisi built?
To move oil. The Transcaucasus Railway reached Baku in 1883, and from then on freight trains carried oil west to Poti on the Black Sea to be shipped to the rest of the Russian Empire. The Baku field was then one of the largest sources of oil in the world; the railway is what made it exportable, and it is the reason the Nobel brothers' company Branobel was in the city at all.
What is Nakhchivan?
An exclave of Azerbaijan, separated from the rest of the country by a strip of Armenian territory. Its railway connections run through Armenia and Iran rather than through Azerbaijan proper, which — with the Armenian border closed — leaves it awkwardly placed on any rail map of the region.
Are there rail passes for Azerbaijan?
No. Azerbaijan is not part of Interrail or Eurail and there is no national multi-journey ticket. Tickets are bought for the individual train from Azerbaijan Railways. Azerbaijani is the official language, with Russian widely understood.