TBILISI RAIL HUB
Georgian Railway carried 1.68 million passengers in 2025 on Stadler double-deckers to the sea and night sleepers to Yerevan — and in May 2026 the first passenger train in six years ran from Baku as the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars line opened.
Tbilisi Central sits above the Station Square metro interchange, a Soviet-era tower with platforms stacked over a shopping mall. The flagship run is the Batumi train: modern Stadler KISS double-deckers, daily each way, 5 hours 35 minutes to the Black Sea for 36 lari in second class — load factors past 100% in summer. Below it run the daily Zugdidi (for Svaneti) and Poti services and the slow, scenic Borjomi local. The railway carried 1,678,421 passengers in 2025 — 65% on main routes, 35% suburban — at an average load factor of 64%; tickets brought ₾31.3 million against ₾56.4 million of costs, a gap the state covers under a public-service obligation.
The international map reopened this year. The Yerevan sleeper runs every second day — Tbilisi 20:20, Yerevan 06:55, re-equipped in 2021 with card-key compartments and shower cars — extended in summer to Batumi. In May 2026 the first passenger train in six years ran from Baku, and the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars corridor was formally inaugurated at Akhalkalaki: new Swiss-built ten-car sleeper trains with a dining car, gauge-changing at the border, design capacity of one million passengers and 6.5 million tonnes of freight a year. The through train to Kars — and one day a rail seat from Tbilisi to Istanbul — is the next domino.
THE TIO READ
Book the Batumi double-decker on tkt.ge the day sales open (20 days out); in July it sells through. Take the Yerevan sleeper over any marshrutka — a bed beats six hours of border queue. When the Baku–Kars through service starts, Tbilisi becomes the Caucasus rail junction again.
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