TURKEY: Plans to extend the Marmaray suburban rail service to Çerkezköy 75 km west of Istanbul have been announced by Minister for Transport & Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu.
This would take the cross-city route to 152 km in length. Uraloğlu was speaking at a ceremony in early November making the breakthrough of a tunnel being constructed for the realignment of the 67 km Ispartaküle - Çerkezköy section of the route from Halkalı to Kapıkule near the Bulgarian border. This forms part of a major route modernisation to raise the line speed.
He said that once the realignment has been completed, the route would be integrated into the Marmaray network, with stations to be built at Bahçeşehir and Çatalca in addition to the 10 existing stations on the section.
Extending Marmaray to Çerkezköy would provide 3·1 million people with simpler access to Istanbul, including interchanges with the metro.
State infrastructure manager TCDD is upgrading the 229 km Halkalı – Ispartakule – Çerkezköy – Kapıkule line in three stages using existing and new alignments.
Uraloğlu said work on the 8·4 km Halkalı – Ispartakule and the 153 km Çerkezköy – Kapıküle sections is expected to be completed by end of 2025, but did not give a completion date for the 67 km Ispartaküle – Çerkezköy section.
Once complete the passenger journey time between Halkalı and Kapıküle will be reduced from 4 h to 1 h 30 min, and the freight transit time from 8 h 30 min to 3 h 30 min.
Uraloğlu added that early next year the ministry plans to take ‘concrete steps’ to start work on the process for constructing the long-awaited orbital rail line from Halkalı round the north of Istanbul. This would cross the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge over the Bosporus to connect with the existing Istanbul – Ankara high speed line at Gebze; rail tracks were laid on the bridge when it was being built more than a decade ago as part of passive provision for the new line.
