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TCDD to start high-speed train trial runs
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12 Jul 2008 Sat 03:11 am |
Turkey's new high-speed train line will begin making trial runs this month, Turkish State Railways (TCDD) General Director Süleyman Karaman announced yesterday.
The new high-speed trains, which can travel at speeds of up to 140 kilometers per hour, will make their first trial runs between Eskişehir and Ankara, Karaman said in an interview with the Anatolia news agency. He said if no problems arise during these rides, construction will begin on a high-sped train line linking the cities of Ankara and Sivas before the end of this year.
Noting that developed countries place great emphasis on high-speed trains, Karaman said developing countries like Turkey should also enter the age of high-speed trains. He cited the Tokyo-Osaka bullet train in Japan, the Seoul-Busan line in South Korea, the Lyon-Paris line in France and the Madrid-Barcelona line in Spain as notable examples of high-speed train routes.
Recalling that the project in Turkey was initiated for the sake of building a line between Ankara and İstanbul, Karaman said: “We have completed the Ankara-Eskişehir leg of the project. The second part, from Eskişehir to İstanbul, has already been contracted, but our loan talks ran into some problems. Our target is to start that part this year,†he said, adding that the Ankara-Eskişehir line would be connected to the İstanbul-Eskişehir line within three years.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=143740
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13 Jul 2008 Sun 12:45 am |
Quoting Roswitha:
The new high-speed trains, which can travel at speeds of up to 140 kilometers per hour
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140 kph is high-speed? Joking, right? Oh...
Indeed it was in 2003 that some trains were tested between Istanbul and Ankara. They were not called high-speed trains then, but "hızlandırılmış tren" - sped-up/accelerated train. True to the word, engines produced by Bosnia-Herzegovina (if i'm correct) running on a hundred year old track laid by Germans, accelerated just by pushing the pedal to the metal. No infrastructure, mind you.
After the tests, trips with passengers were given the green light. A few months later in 2004 the vehicle derailed and three or four dozen died. To make a long story short, a trial was held and the two engineers(!) were sent to jail and soon the incident was forgotten.
Any lessons learned from history? I don't think so, they say Turks forget quite fast. Now just buy an engine from Italy, paint a flag onto it, start the runs by giving declerations to papers full of words 'pride', 'high-tech', 'civilized country' and you've got your speedy train. After all, if something bad happens, you can just blame the engineer...
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13 Jul 2008 Sun 03:02 am |
Thank you, Lazy42, I had no idea
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/22/turkey.train.accident/
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40413000/jpg/_40413447_1trainsap203cred.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/europe/3919787.stm&h=152&w=203&sz=14&hl=en&start=9&um=1&tbnid=dfxDJQMwWx5v9M:&tbnh=79&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2Bturkey%2B2004%2Btrain%2Baccident%2B%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den
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13 Jul 2008 Sun 12:59 pm |
It's still a revolution for Turkey since its railway transport has been neglected for years, but comparing them with other "high-speed trains" is ridiciolous. Just to note that TGV (Paris-Lyon) can travel up to 320 km/h (though on classic lines the safety limit is 220km/h).
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13 Jul 2008 Sun 02:47 pm |
Meltem dear, did you ever taken the Spanish AVE "bullet" train? I did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1XbgUHBpTs
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13 Jul 2008 Sun 06:04 pm |
For Meltem: would you say this is a Turkish train?
http://erdalkinaci.deviantart.com/art/240-83679914
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13 Jul 2008 Sun 06:19 pm |
Quoting Roswitha: Meltem dear, did you ever taken the Spanish AVE "bullet" train? I did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1XbgUHBpTs
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No, I haven't taken. The interiour design looks nice.
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