Posted by meb at February 25th, 2009

Turkey’s first high-speed train service will begin on March 13. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will inaugurate high-speed train that will make eight round trips a day between the capital city Ankara and central city of Eskişehir.

High-speed train trip will take 1 hour and 20 minutes on the nearly 210-kilometer line between the two cities.

Each train sets has the capacity to carry 419 passengers at a time.

Turkey started building high-speed rail lines in 2003. The project will link capital Ankara to İstanbul. The first phase of the project was the line between Ankara and Eskişehir. High-speed train will lower the 180-minute train travel from Ankara to Eskişehir to 80 minutes.

When High Speed Train Project is fully completed, travel time will be 3 hours between Ankara and Istanbul, which is currently 6 hours and 30 minutes.

The Turkish State Railways Administration (TCDD) purchased first high-speed train sets, with a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour, from Spain’s CAF company in 2007.
source: Today’s Zaman

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