The train tickets of Dogu Express on Ankara-Kars route are sold out.
It’s very hard to find tickets for sleepers and couchettes of Dogu Express, the most popular train route in Turkey which is densely prefered also by tours.
Only tickets of next 30 days are on sale for the main lines, and there’s no ticket for sleepers and very few for couchettes during all these days.
Interestingly, there are 3 standard coaches in addition to 2 sleepers and 1 couchette wagon in this train which last about 1 day from Ankara to Kars. And these 3 standard coaches are seen almost empty.
Dogu Express (Ankara-Kars) timetable, options and ticketing
Below table shows the availablity of Dogu Express until end of this year:
Cover Photo: Onur Uysal ©
How is it that tickets are immediately sold out as soon as they are released for sale? Do travel agencies buy all the places? What is TCDD doing to make it possible for ordinary passengers to reserve sleeping-car places?
Yes it looks as if this could be the case. I have traveled on this sleeper sevaral times and had no problems at all finding a sleeper cabin.
That said it is a wonderful journey and Turkish sleeper trains are definitely some of the best in the world.