International Railroad Discussion > Georgia, part 3. Train 371 to Armenia

Like elsewhere in the Caucasus, the international train from Tbilisi, Georgia to Yerevan, Armenia runs at night.

You can look through the Georgian Railway web page here
http://www.railway.ge/samg/searchTrains.aspx?lang=en-US

(I can't make a head or tail out of it here in my basement in Portland, maybe there's a way to figure it out, but its one of those things where you're best off just going to the station, or talking to someone at your hostel instead of getting frustrated looking online).

At any rate, I found out that the train to Yerevan only runs on alternate nights during the off-season, and there was a train leaving that night. There was some rain in the forecast for western Georgia, but not for Armenia, so I headed south. (I planned to bypass Armenia, but my plans were never particularly rigid).

Photos:

1) Train schedule in the Tbilisi station. You can see it's a pretty busy place, 6 departures and 8 arrivals between 20:00 and 8:00. I think the domestic Georgian trains ran multiple times a day, so there were daylight trains as well as overnight trains, but I'm not sure.

2) Boarding train 371 to Yerevan. It was the now-familiar Soviet era cars. I booked 2nd class, as usual, but the train staff wanted me to pay an extra fare for my bicycle, and we both went in 1st class. (2 beds, one on each side of the room). They raised the bed on one side and I put my bike in there. The tickets were quite expensive relative to other places, if I recall correctly it was US $40 for the 10 hour train ride, and $20 for a bicycle fee.

3) Engine crew getting ready to go.

I was getting travel and photo fatigue at this point. So no photos of the inside of the train, or my first class compartment. Or of the snack car which I visited, and had 2 ladies staffing it, where I got a chocolate bar and some soda water just to be sociable. They spoke about 20 words of English, which was considerably more than most locals I'd talked to.

And no photos of the waiting room of the station. It was singularly drab, and also because, as happens while traveling, sometimes you just meet some folks interesting to talk to, and there were a pair of backpackers from Italy and Romania who were waiting for a train to Zugdidi, and we talked for 15 minutes, comparing notes on travel experiences, before I headed out to my train. Sometimes I'd go for days without meeting fellow travelers that had some mutual interests, sometimes I'd meet them and stay with them for a couple days, sometimes I'd meet them and talk for 15 minutes and feel like there was so much more to hear and share, but go off in separate directions. It's one of the fascinating and interesting things about solo vagabonding for me, is the rich array of chance encounters.

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It was a short train, maybe 5 or 6 cars.

We stopped for an hour or two for customs. Which is where it occurred to me that the reason the train runs at night may be because folks would find it intensely frustrating stopping for 2 hours mid-day for customs. Though that doesn't explain the multitude of domestic night-only trains.

I'd read that a tourist visa to Armenia would be US $5, but no fees were collected.

Photos

1) Route map. You can see it went through a lot of mountains. At night. It would certainly be a nicer ride by day... It skirts the Turkish border for the 2nd half of the trip.

As the crow flies, it is only 150 kilometers from Tbilisi to Yerevan. Like Portland to The Dalles. Or Portland to Olympia. But, a slow train on a circuitous routing, through twisty canyons and a slow border crossing takes 9.5 hours.

Going back north I took the only decent daylight train that runs in Armenia, Yerevan to Gyumri. A very nice ride. Pics forthcoming.

2) Arriving in Yerevan. Pre-sunrise.

3) Map from Wikipedia on the new Kars-Tbilisi rail line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kars-Gyumri-Tbilisi_railway

And on the map you can see Kars, Turkey. The only Soviet-era mainline between the USSR and Turkey ran from Kars to Gyumri. This line was closed, along with the entire Turkey/Armenia border, when Armenia annexed/invaded/accepted a chunk of Azerbaijan in about 1993. Now, a replacement mainline has been build from Kars north to Ninotsminda, Georgia where it connects with an existing (and now upgraded) Georgian branch line to Tbilisi. As I mentioned in other posts, passenger trains should start running sometime this year from Ankara, TK through Erzurum and Kars, TK, to Ninotsminda and Tbilisi, Georgia and Baku, Azerbaijan. One overnight train from western Turkey all the way to the Caspian Sea.

Questions, comments?

Ted in OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/18 23:53 by gobbl3gook.

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