Why take a slow train
Georgian Railway will not get you anywhere quickly. The alignment is nineteenth century, following river valleys because that is where the gradients are gentle, and a marshrutka on the motorway often matches it. What the train offers instead is a seat you can leave, a table, a window on the Likhi range and no mountain switchbacks taken at speed.
That trade is worth making on three routes: Tbilisi to Batumi on the double-deck Stadler day trains, Tbilisi to Zugdidi as the way into Svaneti, and the Borjomi branch with its narrow-gauge continuation up to Bakuriani. Everywhere else the road wins outright, or is the only option there has ever been.
Set the expectation early. There is no passenger railway to Kazbegi, none to Mestia, and nothing into Kakheti that a traveller can usefully board. Those are marshrutka and hired-car country. Trains here cover the west and the main east–west spine, and that is the whole of the useful map.
Tbilisi Central stands directly over the Station Square metro stop, about ten minutes from Rustaveli. Half the building is a market — the platforms are upstairs, reached past stalls of socks, phone cases and dried fruit. Ticket windows sit on the concourse, though the app saves you the queue entirely.
The Batumi day train
The flagship is the Tbilisi–Batumi day service, a double-deck Stadler set with air conditioning, power sockets and a buffet counter. Scheduled time runs around five to five and a half hours for roughly 370 kilometres, which tells you everything about the average speed and nothing at all about how pleasant the ride is.
There are usually a few departures a day, typically an early morning and a late afternoon, with the timetable shifting between seasons. Second class is entirely comfortable; first class buys wider seats and a quieter deck. Reckon on roughly 25–35 GEL (2025) in second and more like 45–60 GEL in first.
Buying the ticket before it goes
Tickets go on sale in advance through the Georgian Railway app and the railway's own website, and at any station ticket window. You need a passport number for each passenger, and the conductor checks the name on the ticket against the document. Buy the return at the same time as the outbound.
The honest caveat is summer. Batumi departures sell out days ahead from June through September and on every long weekend, so book when your dates firm up rather than the night before. Foreign cards occasionally fail in the app; a station window taking cash solves that in five minutes.
Makhinjauri is not Batumi
Trains from Tbilisi terminate at Makhinjauri, not in Batumi itself. The station sits a few kilometres north along the coast, and the transfer into town is a city bus, a minibus or a taxi of ten to fifteen minutes. Reckon on roughly 10–20 GEL (2025) for the taxi, agreed before you get in.
It is a small inconvenience with one consolation: the ride in follows the sea. If you are staying north of the centre, near the botanical garden or Green Cape, you may already be where you want to be, and the train has spared you the whole of the coastal road in August.
The Zugdidi line, and Svaneti
Zugdidi is not a destination so much as a doorway. The line ends there, and the station forecourt is where marshrutkas and shared jeeps leave for Mestia, three and a half to four and a half hours up the Enguri gorge depending on roadworks, landslips and the season.
Both a night service and a slower day service run from Tbilisi, taking roughly eight to nine hours. The night train's early arrival lines up with the morning departures for Mestia, which is the single strongest argument for taking it. Drivers wait for the train, but they do not wait long after it.
The night train and its rolling stock
The overnight services run older Soviet-built sleeping cars, and no amount of fresh paint disguises the fact. Compartments are four-berth in the standard class and two-berth in first, bedding arrives rolled in plastic, and the attendant keeps hot water at the end of the corridor. It is a period piece, and mostly a likeable one.
The charm survives better in first class. Two berths instead of four means you are sharing with your own party, the door shuts properly and the temperature is easier to bargain with. Bring earplugs either way, and expect the toilets to be locked while the train is standing in a station.
The Borjomi branch and the Kukushka
The Borjomi branch leaves the main line at Khashuri and runs up the valley to the spa town: a slow local train with almost nobody aboard and a fare of a few lari. It is the least efficient way to reach Borjomi and comfortably the most pleasant one, particularly in autumn when the valley turns.
From Borjomi the narrow-gauge Kukushka climbs to Bakuriani, taking around two and a half hours to cover some thirty-seven kilometres, crossing a steel viaduct at Tsagveri that is traditionally attributed to Eiffel's workshop. Departures are few and change with the season, so check on the day rather than trusting a printed timetable.
Where the train does not go
This is the expectation worth managing before you plan anything. There is no railway to Mestia, none to Kazbegi, and nothing into Kakheti that a visitor can use. Svaneti is reached by road from Zugdidi station, Kazbegi by marshrutka from Didube over the Jvari Pass, Kakheti by minibus or hired car out of Tbilisi.
That is not a hole in the plan, it is the plan. Use rail for the long flat legs west, and spend the road time where the road is the point: the Enguri gorge, the Georgian Military Road, the vineyard lanes below Sighnaghi. Trains for distance, minibuses and drivers for mountains.
Yerevan and Baku by sleeper
Two international sleepers have historically left Tbilisi: south to Yerevan and east to Baku. Both run overnight, both stop for border formalities in the small hours, and both are cheap set against a flight. Passports are collected and stamped on board, which is more theatre than trouble if you are awake for it.
The caveat here is a real one. These services have been seasonal, reduced, and at times suspended for long stretches. Do not build an itinerary around either until you have confirmed it is running on your dates through the railway's own channels, and remember that Armenian and Azerbaijani visa rules are separate questions again.
Five mistakes, so you skip them
Four of these five we have made ourselves, and the first one costs a whole day of the trip.