Türkiye opened the 153-kilometre Çerkezköy–Kapıkule high-speed railway on Oct. 9, a line that brings the country's fast-train network to the Bulgarian frontier and is expected to cut rail travel time between Istanbul and the border from around four hours to roughly an hour and a half.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan inaugurated the line at Babaeski station in Kırklareli province, joined by Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu and EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, according to Türkiye Today. The European Union contributed 275 million euros to the project.
The double-track, electrified line is built for speeds of up to 200 km/h and connects Tekirdağ, Kırklareli and Edirne directly to the high-speed network. With the new section, Türkiye's high-speed rail network reaches 2,604 kilometres, and the number of provinces served directly rises from 11 to 14.
Bigger border station and missing links
At Kapıkule, Türkiye's main rail gateway to Bulgaria, the station area has been expanded from 253,000 to 660,000 square metres and the number of tracks increased from 23 to 42, a change aimed at shortening waits at the frontier. Commissioner Kos said the line also offers an alternative to road freight and should help ease the truck queues that regularly form at the crossing.
The route does not yet run all the way into central Istanbul at high speed. A 69-kilometre section between Ispartakule and Çerkezköy is still under construction, and a roughly 7-kilometre Ispartakule–Halkalı link is expected to open before the end of the year. Timetables, fares and a start date for passenger services on the new line were not detailed at the opening.
What it means for rail travellers
For tourists, the line is a step toward faster rail journeys between Istanbul and Edirne, the former Ottoman capital famed for the Selimiye Mosque, and onward to the Balkans. It also matters for luxury and heritage trains: when the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express crossed into Türkiye at Kapıkule in late September on its Paris–Istanbul run, it could not stop at the station because of renovation work, and passport checks were carried out at Edirne instead.
Officials describe the line as part of a wider rail chain stretching from the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway through Istanbul's Marmaray tunnel toward Europe.
Sources
- Türkiye opens Cerkezkoy-Kapikule high-speed rail line linking Europe – Türkiye Today
- Venice Simplon Orient Express arrives in Türkiye on 2nd trip of the year – Türkiye Today
Photo: Kabelleger / David Gubler / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
