The first tunnel was built on the Ankara-Izmir high-speed railway in record time

Due to the creation of a high-speed line between Ankara and Izmir, travel time between cities will be reduced from 14 to 3.5 hours. The 3005-meter-long first T1 tunnel under the Ankara-Izmir high-speed railway project was completed in a record 206 days. The tunnel with an inner diameter of 12.5 m is located on the Eshme-Salihli section.

There will be two levels: at the top – a two-track railway, at the bottom – a service line in case of emergencies.

A total of 21 bridges and 25 tunnels need to be built on the 74 km long Eshme-Salihli section. At this time, the work has been completed in the amount of 42%.

This was reported by the railway magazine Railway Supply.

The construction of the high-speed line between Ankara and Izmir will require the construction of 503.2 km of new sections, as a result of which the distance between the cities will be reduced from 824 to 620 km, and travel time will be reduced from 14 to 3.5 hours.

There will be five intermediate stations at the GSOM: Afyon-Karahisar, Ushak, Salihli, Turgutlu and Manisa.

A $39 million loan has been approved to extend the high-speed tram to the Palace of Sports in Kyiv

It was planned that the first section from Polatli station, where the HSL intersects with the existing Ankara-Konya, to Afyon-Karahisar station will open by the end of 2022, and the continuation to Menemen – by the end of 2023.

Menemen Station is already connected to the center of Izmir by the reconstructed IZBAN suburban network.

Work on the project began in 2013, but then there were serious delays. Tenders for the construction of sections with a total length of about 300 km have not been completed yet. The works are being carried out on the sections Eshme-Salihli, Usak-Eshme (86 km), Manisa-Menemen (26 km) and Salihli-Manisa (17.5 km).

In June this year, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure of Turkey announced the entry of the construction of another high-speed line – Ankara-Sivas – to the final stage.

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