Ankara railway station

ANKARA
TCDD railway terminal

Ankara railway station
Coordinates 39°56′11″N 32°50′38″E / 39.9364°N 32.8438°E / 39.9364; 32.8438Coordinates: 39°56′11″N 32°50′38″E / 39.9364°N 32.8438°E / 39.9364; 32.8438
Owned by Turkish State Railways
Line(s) Yüksek Hızlı Tren
Fatih Express
Ankara Express
Anatolia Express
Boğaziçi Express
Karesi Express
İzmir Blue Train
Çukurova Blue Train
Eastern Express
Van Lake Express
Southern Express
Trans Asia Express
Ankara-Kırıkkale Regional
Ankara-Polatlı Regional
Sincan-Kayaş Commuter Line
Platforms 6
Tracks 8
Connections EGO Bus, ANKARAY
Construction
Structure type At-grade
Parking Yes
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Station code 2503
History
Opened 1892
Rebuilt 1937
Electrified 1972 (25 kV AC)

Ankara railway station (Turkish: Ankara Garı) is the main railway station in Ankara, Turkey. The station is located in Ulus across from the Gençlik Parkı public park and near the second Turkish Grand National Assembly building. Before 2009, the station was the busiest in Turkey in terms of passenger rail, seeing 181 trains daily.[1] The station is the eastern terminus of the Istanbul-Ankara railway corridor as well as the current eastern terminus of the Yüksek Hızlı Tren high-speed rail service. Due to the rehabilitation of the railway in Ankara under the Başkentray project, commuter rail as well as eastbound trains have been temporarily suspended from servicing Ankara station.

The Art Deco station building was built in 1937 to accommodate the increase of railway traffic and has become a landmark of the city. In 2016 a new, larger station building dedicated to high-speed trains was opened called Ankara Train Station (Turkish: Ankara Tren Garı or ATG).


History

Ottoman Empire period (1892–1922)

The original builder and war materials to the fronts in Palestine and Mesopotamia. Therefore, between 1914 and 1918 the Ankara station had no passenger service and very little freight service. The CFOA fell under British military control after the War, but the Turkish Nationalists captured Ankara and parts of the CFOA. During the Turkish Independence War, CFOA transported troops from Ankara, as the newly named capital of Turkey, to the front near Eskişehir.[2]

Turkish Republic period (1922–present)

Old building
View of 19 May Square and the Ankara Railway Station taken in the 1940s

After the Turkish independence war ended, the passenger train services from Istanbul to Ankara resumed. The CFOA, now under Turkish control, finally opened the line to Kayseri and Ankara was no longer the terminus. CFOA was then acquired by the Turkish State Railways (TCDD) on June 1, 1927 and Ankara station was placed under TCDD control.[3] In 1927 the Anatolian Express was inaugurated as a premier overnight train from Istanbul to Ankara operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL).[4] The current Art deco building was built in 1937 by German architects. As TCDD completed rail lines to other cities, new train services from Ankara such as the 9th of September Express (1939) to Izmir, the Eastern Express (1939) to Kars, and the Southern Express (1944) to Diyarbakır and Kurtalan made Ankara station one of the busiest stations in Turkey. In 1972, the station, along with the track between Sincan and Kayaş, were electrified with 25 kV AC catenary for the Ankara Suburban Railway. In 1993 the Istanbul-Ankara line was fully electrified. In the 1990s TCDD opened a steam museum next to the station. In 2009 a high-speed train service operated from Ankara to Eskişehir.

The 2015 Ankara bombings occurred on 10 October 2015 at 10:04 local time (EEST) in Ankara. Two bombs were detonated outside the entrance of the Ankara Central railway station, killing more than 105 and injuring more than 400 people.[5][6] The attack is the deadliest of its kind in Turkey's modern history.[7]

Service

A TCDD HT65000 at the Ankara Central Station

Layout

The station has 6 long platforms: 4 for long distance trains and 2 for commuter trains.

A new station for high speed trains was open on 29 October 2016. The new station is capable of providing services to 50,000 passengers daily. The building also have 134 hotel rooms and over 200 rentable areas for restaurants, coffee shops, entertainment venues, stores, and offices. There is the car park with a capacity of more than 900 vehicles.[8]

One of Turkey's top 50 civil engineering projects

Turkish Chamber of Civil Engineers lists Ankara Central Station as one of the fifty civil engineering feats in Turkey, a list of remarkable engineering projects realized in the first 50 years of the chamber.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ TCDD Timetables Archived 2010-08-09 at the Wayback Machine. - TCDD Ankara Timetables
  2. ↑ CFOA History - Trains of Turkey CFOA History
  3. ↑ TCDD History -Trains of Turkey TCDD History
  4. ↑ The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Steam & Rail - By Colin Garratt and Max Wade-Matthews, page 397
  5. ↑ Melvin, Don. "At least 105 killed in twin bombings near train station in Turkey's capital". cnn.com. CNN.
  6. ↑ "Ölü Sayısı 105'e Yükseldi" (in Turkish). TTB. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  7. ↑ "BBC: Ankara explosions leave more than 80 dead – officials". BBC News. October 10, 2015. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
  8. ↑ "Ankara gets new main station for high speed trains", www.hurriyetdailynews.com
  9. ↑ The list (in Turkish) Archived 2013-10-31 at the Wayback Machine.
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