Ankara-Konya high-speed railway

The high-speed line Ankara - Konya is a new line of TCDD, which runs between the capital of Turkey and the industrial center of Konya and was opened end of 2010. Commercial operation was recorded on August 24, 2011.

The existing line

Ankara and Konya were the two target points of the Anatolian railway, which, coming from İstanbul- Haydarpaşa, connects both cities with a Y-shaped network. This meant that traveling by train to the commissioning of the new line would go over the branch point Eskişehir early 2011 between Ankara and Konya, a large detour. Thus, the distance between Ankara and Konya was by rail 687 km, but only 258 km on the road. The railway journey took 10 ½ hours.

The high-speed rail

The new railway line between Ankara and Konya was built by the TCDD for a top speed of 250 km / h equipped with ETCS Level 1 and opened on December 17, 2010. The distance is reduced by it to 306 km. The start of operations carried out on 24 August 2011, with ten high-speed trains of the series HT65000 the Spanish manufacturer CAF be used. The trains run on the existing high- speed line Ankara - Eskişehir to a junction between Ankara and Polatlı (93 km) and from then on the new line in a direct way to Konya. The scheduled journey time is 90 minutes. In the future, the driving time should be reduced an additional 15 minutes to 75 minutes. However, since no new vehicles were purchased, only four pairs of trains per day can be offered, what the demand is in no way intended to meet.