During the USSR era, the Gyumri-Kars line became the only direct railway connection between the USSR and Turkey. For most of the time, the Soviet Armenian railway staff at the final Soviet station, Akhuryan (the border station is apparently here: , although it may be not the main Akhuryuan station), had a fairly good working relationship with their Turkish colleagues at Doğukapı (station apparently here: ) on the Turkish side of the border. In the mid-1980s, the annual freight volume across the border was around 65,000 tons, peaking at 180,000 tons in 1989. Apparently, that was still much less than the railway's capacity, which was as high as 6,000,000 tons per year.