Turkey lunches high speed trains Mar 12, 2009

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Turkey became a country that run high speed trains on its railroads. The first route will launch May 13th from Ankara to Eskishehir, and that’s approximately half of the distance from Ankara to Istanbul. The two hundred kilometer travel distance will now be accomplished in under 87 minutes, as opposed to over 3 hours not so long ago. The reasonable estimate for the future improvement is to reduce the travel time to about 70 minutes. Presently there are four high speed train fares per day scheduled in each direction. Till the end of March the fare features promotional prices of 5 Turkish Liras ($3) for one way travel. And starting in April the regular 25 lira tariff shall be enacted. The line uses trains of Spanish producer CAF; these trains can reach the speed of 250km/h, provide 419 regular and 55 business class seats. The trains are rigged with video equipment; and the business class sections features sockets for laptops and other devices, as well as a high speed internet connection. The trains will lope under the YHT brand.

In the next couple of years the line is expected to extend from Eskishehir to Istanbul. After which, the travel time from the capital in Ankara to country’s largest city, Istanbul, will shorten to only three hours instead of the current six and a half. Several other lines are in development, such as Eskishehir-Izmir, Ankara-Konya, and Ankara-Sivas. This infrastructural construction program in Turkey is planned for the next ten years.