{"id":176758,"date":"2025-02-17T20:02:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T10:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=59889"},"modified":"2025-02-17T20:02:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T10:02:16","slug":"turkiye-completes-second-rail-tunnel-drilling-for-asia-europe-freight-traffic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=176758","title":{"rendered":"T\u00fcrkiye completes second rail tunnel drilling for Asia \u2013 Europe freight traffic"},"content":{"rendered":"

A second tunnel has been completed between Halkal\u0131 and Ispartakule in Istanbul. The tunnel is a relatively short piece of infrastructure in the country\u2019s largest city Istanbul, but it is also part of a future high-speed rail line to Bulgaria that will facilitate freight traffic. The first tunnel was finished in November.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>The tunnel is one out of three stages of the Istanbul \u2013 Bulgaria high-speed line, which will run between the Halkal\u0131 and Kap\u0131kule rail freight hubs. Out of 229 kilometres of the route\u2019s total length, the tunnel only occupies 8,4 kilometres between Halkal\u0131 and Ispartakule in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

With the drilling of the second tunnel finished, 95 per cent of this section of the line is now completed, according to Turkish transport minister Abdulkadir Uralo\u011flu. The remainder is supposed to be finished by August.<\/p>\n

Throughput capacity<\/h2>\n

A 67-kilometre and 153-kilometre railway constitute the remaining two stages of the entire high-speed rail project. T\u00fcrkiye aims for completion by the end of the year: \u201cWith the completion of all stages, we aim to increase the current line capacity by four times, and we plan to reduce passenger travel time from four hours to one hour and 30 minutes, and freight transportation time from eight hours to three and a half hours\u201d, the transport minister said in November. Once finished, the line should have an annual throughput capacity of 33,5 million tonnes of freight.<\/p>\n