TURKEY’s minister of transport and infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, has announced reaching preliminary agreement with six international lending institutions that will provide $US 6.75bn for the project to build a second rail link across the Bosphorus via the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge.
According to Uraloğlu, what is Turkey’s largest externally-financed rail project will be funded by the World Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Islamic Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the OPEC Fund for International Development.
It is hoped to complete tendering by the end of this year for the Northern Railway Crossing Project to create a new high-capacity line for freight and passenger services. The double-track electrified line will run for 126km from Gebze on the Asian side of the Bosphorus via Çayırova to Sabiha Gökçen Airport and the Yavuz Sultan Selim suspension bridge, which opened in August 2016.
From the bridge, the new line will run to Istanbul Airport and Çatalca to connect with the Halkalı - Çerkezköy high-speed line that is now under construction. Civil engineering for the new link across the Bosphorus will include the construction of 44 tunnels with a total length of 59.1km, and 42 bridges totalling 22.4km in length.
Uraloğlu says that the project will relieve the Marmaray rail link that was completed in 2019, following the opening of its tunnel section beneath the Bosphorus in 2013. The new rail link will also directly connect Istanbul’s two international airports by rail for the first time. It is expected to carry 33 million passengers and 30 million tonnes of freight a year, marking the start of what Uraloğlu describes as “a new era in logistics.”
“The strong interest shown by international financial institutions is the clearest indication of confidence in Turkey's railway vision,” Uraloğlu says.
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