In 2004, a Turkish train derailed on a curve at a speed of 130 km/h, killing 41 people. A year before, Turkey announced the development of an extensive network of high-speed trains. Well, Turkey has invested, has many trains that reach speeds of 250 km/h, and has a detailed plan of what its rail network will look like in 29 years! How did the Turks succeed? What is the speed of the trains? What went wrong?

Turkey and high-speed rail – from rusty locomotives to trains that reach speeds of 250 km/h

Turkey had some of the worst trains in the region, most of them were bypassed, a few kilometers were electrified and the country invested much more in roads. In the 1970s, there was not a single year without at least one fatal train accident.

In the 2000s, everything changed

Erdogan was the most important person in Turkey for 20 years, and in 2023 he was re-elected as president for the third time. Things in Turkey are far from “rosy”: high inflation, corruption is present in many areas, and Erdogan rules with an “iron hand”, and the purges after the failed coup in 2016 are well known.

But Turkey, which also has a strong industry, has invested heavily in infrastructure, and its construction companies are also present abroad, winning contracts to build railways and roads, including in Romania.

When it comes to trains in Turkey, over the last 15 years there have been massive changes and everything has been turned upside down. It was not chosen to build lines with a speed of 350 km/h, as in China, but with a maximum speed of 250 km/h and only in certain sections. The costs were lower and the work progressed faster than if the high-speed train option had been chosen.

Trains in Turkey can travel at a maximum speed of 250 km/h. The areas where this speed is reached are small, but there are long stretches over 150 km/h, which is not bad for such a large country.

In addition, the Turks started with somewhat simpler sections in lowland terrain, gained experience in building high-speed lines on these simpler lines, and then moved on to more complex lines in mountainous areas with tunnels several kilometers long.

In addition, the Turks followed the 20-year-old plan, although everything cost more than the estimate and they did not even build so many kilometers of expressway. There were also problems on the ground, but the railway “landscape” has changed. There is a Master Plan for 2053, and this is important because if there is a clear plan, there is more certainty that something will be done.

It must be said that in Turkey there are still old trains and locomotives from the 70s and many sections with a speed of less than 50 km/h. Not everything has changed in 15 years.

19 years ago, a Turkish train derailed at a bend 180 km from Istanbul. The maximum speed on this stretch should have been 80 km/h, but it reached 132 km/h. 41 people died. It was the second worst accident in the history of the country, the most terrible was in 1957, when 95 people died.

Chinese people, national train and historical day in 2009

Turkey also turned to Chinese firms, bought trains from Spain and Germany, but also contracted with local construction firms. But after 2010, the Turks also started working on the so-called “National Train!” designed and built in the country.

This national train was ready in 2019, being an electric frame that can reach 160 km/h. The train was supposed to enter service in 2020, but mainly due to the pandemic, the launch was only possible in 2023. Türasaş is the name of the company developing this Turkish electric train, and by the end of 2024 there will be four trains in operation. , and by 2030 it is planned to have 56 trains in operation.

An interesting detail: the Türasaş company was born from the merger of three state-owned companies that manufactured different types of railway vehicles.

March 13, 2009 was a special day in Turkey, as the first “high-speed line” between the capital Ankara and the university city of Eskişehir (228 km), a city where rail vehicles are also being built, was inaugurated.

In the driver’s cab, at the microphone, Prime Minister Erdoğan proudly commented on the seconds when the train reached 250 km/h. Never before has a passenger train been so fast in Turkey. In two years of work, only half of the first major project was ready. The second stage, technically much more difficult, will be completed in five years.

In 2009, Spanish CAF trains (ten HT65000 trains) began to run, and from 2013, Siemens trains began to arrive. 19 Siemens Velaro gaskets arrived between 2013 and 2021 in a country ruled by President Erdogan with an iron fist. Each train has eight cars and 519 seats.

Some of the trains arrived in Turkey in transit through Romania, and jokingly, I could have said then that Romania also had high-speed trains for the day.

The invested billions of dollars and hundreds of kilometers became a reality

In 2009, the state-owned rail company announced that more than $45 billion would be allocated by 2023 and that 10,000 km of high-speed lines and 4,000 km of conventional lines would be built by then. Not that many have succeeded, but there are several lines in Turkey where trains reach a speed of 250 km/h, and the average speed exceeds 130 km/h.

In July 2014, a major event took place: work on the Istanbul-Ankara line was completed, the length of which was 533 km, which is 41 km shorter than the old line, on which trains ran for more than seven hours. Then they promised that the time would be reduced to 3.5 hours, now it is more than four hours, but still not bad.

The Istanbul-Ankara line cost more than four billion dollars.

Then, in the summer of 2014, a special train between the two Turkish cities again featured Erdogan, who stopped in Eskişehir to make a speech in the election campaign.

“I promised and worked hard. We have crossed mountains and crossed rivers,” Erdogan said in his speech. “We completed the work and opened this line today, although there were attempts at sabotage, blocking and obstruction.”

China played an important role in the construction of this high-speed line, as it was worked on by a Sino-Turkish consortium that won the contract in 2005, a consortium consisting of China Railway Construction Corporation, China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation and Turkish Cengiz Construction and Ibrahim Cecen Ictas Construction. It was written in the press at the time that a loan of 750 million dollars was received from the Chinese for this project.

Turkish high-speed lines multiply

In 2011, the Ankara-Konya high-speed line was opened, where 309 km can be covered in less than an hour and 50 minutes. Until that time, in a detour, the road took ten hours. In the spring of 2013, the Eskişehir-Konya line was opened.

At the end of 2014, high-speed trains began to run between Konya and Istanbul, covering 631 km in 4 hours and 15 minutes, while buses took 10-11 hours.

In January 2022, the 102-kilometer Konya – Karaman line was opened, the travel time was reduced from 80 minutes to 40 minutes. In the following years, high-speed lines will also reach cities such as Mersin, Adana and Gaziantep

In 2023, the Turks announced that 72 million high-speed train trips were made in 14, of which 24 million were on the Ankara-Istanbul line and more than 18 million were on the Ankara-Konya line. In Turkish, the services are called YHT “Yuksek Hizli Tren”.

In the spring of 2023, the Ankara-Sivas high-speed line, which was very difficult to build, opened four years late. In 2008, work began on the Ankara-Sivas high-speed line, which is only 405 km, compared to the 602 km that trains now travel on the old line with many detours On the new direct line, trains travel in 2 hours 33 minutes, while the old line is still running and takes 10-11 hours.

The new line has 49 tunnels, the longest is 5 km. There were mistakes in the project, and there were arguments in the parliament about the delay in the construction of this line.

How are the trains in Turkey? The distance between Ankara and Istanbul Pendik station is 506 km, and high-speed trains leave in 4 hours, and night trains – in 7 and a half hours. Istanbul Söğütlüçeşme Central Railway Station is another 23 minutes, but this section is much slower (28-40 minutes).

In Turkey, very long-distance trains move at an average speed of 50-55 km/h, so they can cover 600 km in 12 hours, for example the distance Izmir – Konya.

It is 1365 km from Ankara to Kars, and a direct train takes 24-25 hours.

From Ankara to Adana is 670 km, the train takes 11-12 hours.

A lot of work is underway on a very complex project, the Ankara-Izmir high-speed line, which will be 624 km, 200 km shorter than the current circuit and slower line.

There will be 49 tunnels, 67 viaducts and 66 bridges. Trains now only take 14 hours, but the new line should take 3 hours 30 minutes. Work should be completed in 2027, but is likely to be completed in 2028 or 2029.

The master plan until 2053 foresees investments of almost 200 billion dollars

In the summer of 2023, the Turkish authorities announced a very large infrastructure development plan with clear goals for the next 30 years, that is, until… 2053. The goal is to make Turkey a “logistics superpower” and the total investment promised in the railways is… $198 billion.

Turkey, a country of 85 million people, has few train journeys, with 19.5 million journeys forecast for 2023. The government wants 145 million trips to be made in 2035 and 269 million in 2053.

The length of the Turkish railway network is almost 14 thousand km, of which more than 50% are electrified, and 500 km are electrified. The goal is for the total network to be double the current network in 2053, to more than 28,000 km, and the goal is for high-speed trains to serve the country’s 52 provinces, up from eight now.

Since 2019, work has also been underway to modernize the line to the Bulgarian border on the Halkali – Kapikule section (278 km). The works will be ready at the end of 2024 or in 2025.

Considerable funds will also be invested in the development of freight transportation by railway, so that the share of railways among all modes of transport will be four times greater than it is now.

The 30-year transport master plan also envisages the expansion of the highway network from 3,633 km to 8,325 km.

Sources; International Railway Journal, Railway Gazette International, Railway-Technology.com, Financial Times, BBC, railfreight.com, Daily Sabah, TCDD

Photo source: Dreamstime.com