Turkey’s Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Enver İskurt has announced that the construction of Ankara-Sivas high-speed line is in the final stage. The line is planned to be inaugurated by the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this month 2021.
“We will offer a fast, comfortable and modern transport service to our people. The technical committee and the managers working on the project are carrying out the final details to allow line’s opening,” Enver İskurt said.
Ankara-Sivas high-speed line has a length of 393 km and is served by eight stations in Elmadağ, Kırıkkale, Yerköy, Yozgat, Sorgun, Akdağmadeni, Yıldızeli and Sivas.
The project has been divided into two rail sections, with the first one covering 151 km from Kayaş rail station, in Ankara area to Yerköy in the Central Anatolia region. From Yerköy to Sivas, in the central Turkey, the line has a length of 242 km.
66 km of rail is constructed in 49 tunnels with the longest tunnel having 5.12 km.
The project also included the construction of 49 viaducts with a total length of 27.2 km, with the 2.2 km the longest viaduct.
The first test on the Büşeyh – Yerköy – Akdağmadeni section of the high – speed line linking the two important cities has been completed in March 2020. At the beginning of this year TCDD has performed the measurement, dynamic test running as well as the tests on the ETCS Level 1 signalling system.
The new line will reduce the travel time between Ankara and Sivas to two hours, from currently 12 hours as trains will be able to run at a maximum speed of 250 km/h. USD 1.6 billion was the value of the project.
In the last years, Turkey has announced its plans to develop its railway system, including the construction of a comprehensive high-speed rail network. EUR 39 billion was the investment commitment announced by the authorities to “connect every corner of the country to the high-speed rail system”.
In 2019, the high-speed lines in Turkey reached 1,213 km and on long term, the country intends to create a high-speed rail system of 7,420 km.
Recently, Siemens Mobility has delivered the last of the 19 Velaro train to operate country’s high-speed rail lines.
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