The Railway of Georgia plans to modernize the Tbilisi-Makhinjauri Railway, hiring the Group of the 23rd Bureau of the Chinese Railway to do the job, Business Georgia reports.
The railway tunnel (8,350m) on the Kvishkheti-Zvare section is a single-line railway, while the rest of the railway is two-line. ILF Consulting Engineers proposed construction of another tunnel to increase capacity of the section to 100 million tons and save 1.6 Swiss francs on the construction. The capacity will increase by 120%.
Realization of the project started in May 2010 and should be accomplished by 2014. Taking the train from Tbilisi to Batumi will take 3 hours less time. Moving from Tbilisi to Batumi takes 5 hours 15 minutes at the moment, from Tbilisi to Poti 4 hours and 45 minutes.
