By ashleykaren
The last phase of the high-speed railway project linking Turkey to Bulgaria has started with work on the Halkali to Ispartakule tunnel.
The Halkali Kapikule Railway Project started in 2019 and was defined by the Turkish Government as the first part of the Asia-Europe Railway Corridor, with the 229km-long project observing the primary rail link between Turkey and Western Europe by linking to the Trans-European Transport Network.
Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, Turkey’s Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the 9km Halkali-Ispartakule line, marking the railway’s role in linking the country across Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Uraloğlu expressed: “This railway line will further strengthen the relations between Turkey and the European Union and will reinforce our friendship.”
“This project constitutes one of the most important links that form the European connection with the part of the Silk Railway route passing through our country.”
In addition, he stated that the whole project would cut the time it takes to get from Halkali in Istanbul to Kapikule, on the border of Turkey and Bulgaria, by two and a half hours; from four hours to one and a half. It will improve the current line capacity four times over as well.
The last section of the line will be constructed by a group of local construction corporations, incorporating Gülermak Ağır Sanayı, Yapı & Yapı Inşaat, and Taşyapı Inşaat, at a cost of Tl6bn ($223m).
The vast majority of the high-speed rail project will concern the excavation of a 6.2km tunnel up to a depth of 55m via the Küçükçekmece Lake and the presented Istanbul canal.
Work on the Halkali Kapikule scheme is just one of the investments into high-speed rail in Turkey, with another line also being constructed in the south of the country, linking Mersin to Gaziantep, which recently profited from $867m of funding from the UK Government via the UK Export Finance credit agency.
