Here’s the upcoming issues about Turkish railways in May:

HST to meet Istanbul

Istanbul is going to meet with high speed train this month. As the Transportation Minister announced, the Istanbul-Ankara high speed train will start its service in the second half of May. The line has not completed yet, so conventional line will support this service in some parts for a while.

Opening of high speed line also means that freight traffic will officially start at the same time. Since one lane conventional line is fully occupied by high speed train during the day, the freight wagons will have the chance to move during nights.

Vote for HST design

Last week, Suleyman Karaman, General Manager of TCDD, had shared a tweet in front of the new high speed train of Turkey, Velaro, which is getting prepared for the service. Most probably, the new design, which was voted online, is going to be presented to public soon. For the high speed train service with 300 km/h, we’ll wait a few months more.

Engineering works in railway stretch to Iran

May started with another construction work on the eastern side of Turkey. The connection to Iran is going to be renewed, which means delays for the following four months. Renewal of line will increase the speed from 30 km/h to 100 km/h.

Rail Turkey grew fast

In April, Rail Turkey had another record and been visited 7768 times. This not only means 20% increase compared with last month, but also is equivalent to sum of visits in first 6 months of Rail Turkey.

Rail Turkey celebrated its first anniversary in April, thanks to all railway fans supporting us with messages.