15: Trans-Turkey Express
In 1998, all Turkish cities with above 500.000 citizens had to come up with a plan for the train connections in the near future. Eskisehir is one of the first Turkish cities which had a highspeed tram connection. After Konya, Bursa Antalya and Eskisehir (in 2004), places like Kayseri, Mersin, Denizli, Isparta, Trabzon en Samsun followed the example.
With an amount of a half million people where 110.000 travelers will go everyday from home to their work, the tram connection is the quickest and easiest way to travel around. It directs you to most of the main places in no-time.
The connections are only a start for in-city travel. At the moment of this writing tests are also held before the final realization of a high speed connection between prominent Turkish places. The TCDD Eurotem project started in 2003 and parts of it will be in use very soon.
In daily use this means you can travel in one hour and fifteen minutes from Ankara to Eskisehir (245 km) and take another hour to Istanbul which would cost you like 8 hours in total with the current slow train connection.
This also can have effect on the current time management. Higher speed connections could boost the economy, businesspeople and tourists can be at more places on the same day. How this would pay off in reality is something time will tell. Traveling in Turkey has never been this easy before.
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Eskisehir
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