The so-called Silk Railway project in Türkiye, which will connect Halkalı, near Istanbul, to Kapıkule, near the border with Bulgaria, will be ready by 2028, said the Turkish minister of transport. The project will be divided into three phases, with the first one to be completed by the end of next year.
The future Halkalı-Kapıkule railway will extend for 229 kilometres. The first phase of the project entails the construction of the longest section of the line: 153 kilometres between Kapıkule and Çerkezköy. The second stage and third stages, the construction of the Çerkezköy-Ispartakule and the Ispartakule-Halkalı segments, should both be completed by 2028.
Middle Corridor boost
Once operational, this new railway is expected to boost rail freight traffic between Asia and Europe via the Middle Corridor. The future Halkalı-Kapıkule stretch will also be linked to the Turkish capital Ankara. From there, the infrastructure can connect to the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, stretching from Azerbaijan to Türkiye. Thus, by 2028 it should be possible to have a seamless rail link crossing Türkiye from east to west, which should facilitate Eurasian transport.
The construction of the Halkalı-Kapıkule railway is financed by Türkiye but also by European institutions including the European Development Bank. However, it is not yet clear how much the project is going to cost. Once commissioned, it is estimated that rail freight traffic along this axis will increase from 1.53 million tonnes to 9.6 million tonnes per year. Passenger traffic should increase from the current 600,000 to 3.4 million per year.