Old rail projects in Turkey

Foreword

Railways in Turkey are an unfinished business. Line building that peaked in the 1930 slowed down after World War 2 and ceased in the early 1970, before completion of the network envisioned by TCDD. Indeed, after the 1950, the Turkish Republic gradually shifted its resources from railway to road building. Today several obvious gaps remain in the network such as lines to Bursa and Antalya.

The first years of the 21st century are looking different with the completion of several long outstanding projects: the cross Bosphorus tunnel, the Ankara Istanbul & Ankara Konya high speed lines, the Ankara Samsun high speed line.

Ankara Istanbul direct high speed line

In the mid 1980's, there was a project for a direct high speed line from Ankara to Istanbul, completely by-passing Eskişehir. This 259 km project would have left the traditional line at Sincan, in Ankara suburbs to go to Ayaş, Beypazarı, Nallıhan, Mudurnu, Akyazi and then Arifiye, where double track was already completed to Haydarpaşa. This cut-off would have removed 150 Km off the current 570 km between Istanbul and Ankara and would reduce the travel time to 2,5 / 3 hr, assuming a top speed of 250 km/h.

Some earthwork were started on about 90km in the late 1980's on the Sincan Beypazarı part of the project before being halted for lack of funding. This project is in the dark and was replaced by much more realistic double tracking & realignment along the traditional route.

See High speed train (Yüksek Hızlı Tren) in Wikipedia.

Antalya Alanya

First mention of Antalya to Alanya railway is showing on a 1915 railway map. A modern variant of this project called for 140 km of electrified double track through the coastal plain between Antalya and Alanya. Bids for a BOT (built operate transfer) financing were called in 1998, but without success. The modern variant is to be understood as a modern and efficient public transportation across a densely populated area. This line presents no major engineering difficulties. It may come trough one day as a complement to Antalya urban rail system.

Burdur Antalya

This line was part of the 1930's TCDD master plan and can be seen on many maps published since this time. It was never built because it requires a very costly crossing of the Taurus Mountains. The line would leave Antalya (sea level) and climb very quickly to 900 m, the average altitude of most of the passes in this area. Then the line would go on to Burdur, altitude 950 m through another pass at 1200m. Massive tunneling would be required to mitigate the climb and obtain a line suitable for modern speed.

Since World War 2, Antalya and its coastal plain grew very much, but not to the point where such a dreadful project could be put back on the agenda.

Polatlı Afyon

In 1999, several politicians called for a Polatlı Afyon direct line. This line would cut off the existing line via Eskişehir and save time. It would serve no major cities and the current level of traffic between Afyon and Ankara hardly supports this proposal. On the plus side, this line, which is easy to build, would relieve the congestion on the Eskişehir - Polatlı trunk.

Coupled with the Burdur Antalya line, this would make a straight line from Ankara to the Mediterranean; so that one can dream of going on weekend vacations in sleeping cars rather than the current night buses.

Bursa Bözüyük

This project would revive the alignment of the ill fated Moudiana Brousse railway, which started building that line but could not complete it. This project if also very often presented as two branches: a link east to Bözüyük for direct connection to Ankara, a link north to Mekece for the connection to Istanbul. The two branch will separate some where between Turan and Inegöl. The Mekece branch makes the most sense because it will go trough flat country. The Bözüyük branch would involve a severe gradient to climb up about 600m in altitude in about 75km (an average of 0,8%).

There were rumors in the 1999 / 2000 that the Russians would provide finance and engineering to built this line. Since then, nothing happened.

Bursa is Turkey fifth largest city and the most industrial area after Istanbul. Local business are pushing for a railway. This railway to the Istanbul Ankara line would open large freight and passengers traffic opportunities.

Bursa Bandırma

This project is the cousin of the above mentioned and would reach Bursa from the west rather than the east. It would provide a connection to Izmir. This project was mentioned in the 1998 master plan of TCDD, but dropped since then. Indeed, this project brings no advantage when compared to the above-mentioned Bursa Bözüyük, even for the connection to Izmir.

Tatvan - Van

The current line to the Iran border has a gap between Tatvan and Van, which is filled by a ferry service across the Van Lake. The Tatvan -Van line is part of most of the railway master plan drawn up for Anatolia since the 1900. It is on TCDD projection maps since the 1930's but could never be done due to a poor operating ratio. It has to be noted that this 240 km line would present some major engineering difficulties since it has to go across the mountains.

Its building was rumored again when cross border service with Iran resumed in March 2000. Iran itself has a pro-rail policy and has built lately many lines, both domestic and international in order to win international traffic from central Asia. However, the Tatvan - Van is currently not financed.

Adapazarı Ereğli Zonguldak

Another scheme, which is still projected, is the long-proposed line from Adapazarı along the coast to Ereğli and Zonguldak. It would obviously be a great advantage if the Black Sea coal fields had a direct link to Istanbul and Western Turkey in place of the circuitous and mountainous route via lrmak.

Only a small part of this line was built : the Ereğli Armutçuk line. The remaining is yet to be funded.

Adapazarı Bolu Izmetpaşa

This line which is a competing project to Adapazarı Ereğli Zonguldak is mentioned here only for pleasure! This project which was projected before the war is the inland route from Istanbul to Düzce, Bolu and finally Izmetpaşa, on the Irmak Zonguldak line. But the crossing of the mountains near Bolu priced out this line for good. It is no longer on the drawing boards!

Izzetin Kalin

This is the so called Ankara Sivas cut off route. It branches off the existing line at lzzetin, east of Ankara, to Yozgat and Kalin, where the Samsun branch joins the main line just west of Sivas. This would halve the distance and reduce the cost of iron ore than come from the east. This project is surfaced from time to time but without any serious backing.

Delice Kayadüzü

This is another cut-off project, but this time to Samsum. This line would branch off the existing Ankara Sivas line near Delice and go straight to Çorum and Kayadüzü on the exiting Samsun Sivas line. This project makes good sense and would link the busy Samsun area to Ankara. It is mentioned since the 1920 and would present no greater engineering difficulties than the existing Samsum, Sivas line, perhaps even less. Indeed, I cannot understand why it was not built in the first place instead of the existing line?