Rail travel in Turkey

Mainline rail services in Turkey fall into three categories: i) very fast and modern; ii) slow and scenic; and iii) suspended long-term for rebuilding or for other reasons. The train operator is TCDD Transport, visit their website for timetables, fares and reservations. The trains are inexpensive but often sell out. See below for how to buy tickets.

You can reach Istanbul by overnight train from Bucharest or Sofia. Most cities in Turkey have a rail connection of some sort, but not the Mediterranean and Aegean holiday resorts, which were only built from the late 20th century and are hemmed in by mountains (Kuşadası is the exception, being close to Selçuk on the line between Izmir and Pamukkale). For some destinations, connecting buses meet the trains, e.g. at Eskişehir for Bursa, and at Konya for Antalya and Alanya. The larger cities also have metro and suburban lines, described on those cities’ "get around" pages.

YHT (yüksek hızlı tren) are the very fast trains. These connect Istanbul, Eskişehir, Ankara, Konya, Karaman and Sivas. They are clean, comfortable and modern; fares are modest and reservations are compulsory. They run on new, dedicated track at up to 300 km/h so they keep to time. Thus from Istanbul it’s under 5 hours to Ankara, with 8 per day. Because journey times are short, YHT trains only run daytime, and have only snack-catering. On-train announcements in English forbid “smoking, alcohol, smelly food and peanuts.” The smoke-free and alcohol-free rules are enforced, it’s unclear how zealous they are about peanuts.

YHT routes under construction are from Karaman towards Adana, from Istanbul towards Edirne, from Eskişehir towards Bursa, and from Ankara towards Kayseri. The long-term strategy is to create a high-speed, high-capacity passenger and freight route from Edirne on the western border through to Kars in the east.

Conventional trains (anahat trenleri) are slow and scenic, with the emphasis on slow: most run overnight, with journeys from Ankara to eastern cities taking 24 hours. They are infrequent, at best daily, sometimes only one or two per week. The typical train set has a sleeping car (yataklı vagon), a couchette car (kuşetli), and three open saloons (layout is single row - aisle - double row), plus a buffet that may or may not have any food and may or may not accept payment cards, so bring cash and your own food. How clean and comfortable the trains are depends on how busy: at quiet times they are fine, but when crowded they soon become filthy (always carry your own toilet-roll and hand-wipes). They are difficult for anyone with impaired mobility to use, and station re-building makes access worse. Nominally these trains are non-smoking, but there’s often a smell of tobacco smoke aboard. They are diesel-hauled and run on single tracks: on straight level sections they can rattle along at 100 km/h, but in the mountains they plod up steep gradients and squeal around tight bends. So they start on time but become delayed along the route — often for several hours on long-haul routes; settle on a relaxed schedule for the successive steps of your trip.

Tourist trains are primarily scenic but just as slow. Several were planned, but as of 2024 only Ankara to Kars and return is running and only in the winter. It may be the model for others, for instance to Cappadocia. It costs twice the normal fare and makes a few 2-3 hour stops for sight-seeing, so the total running time is a little longer. You're tied to the tourist itinerary without flexibility of stopover. The accommodation is similar to conventional trains: indeed the rolling stock was provided by pulling sleeping cars off the conventional trains, so the travel experience on those has been degraded.

Once a year, the Venice Simplon Orient Express runs across the Balkans to Halkalı, reckon €13,000.

As of 2023, the only international passenger service is from Bucharest or Sofia: these overnight trains combine at the Turkish border and continue to Istanbul. There’s no regular service from further west, you travel from Budapest or Belgrade on trains which don’t connect, so you need to spend a night in either Sofia or Bucharest. The latter is the better route because of interminable track works in the Balkans disrupting the route via Sofia.

The sleeper train departs Sofia around 21:00 nightly, running via Plovdiv, Kapıkule on the border, and Edirne, to terminate at Istanbul Halkalı at (theoretically) 07:40. From June to September the Bosphor Express departs Bucharest at 12:45, running via Ruse to Dimitrovgrad, where it is coupled to the train from Sofia. At Kapıkule all passengers have to get out for Turkish border procedures, before continuing to Halkalı. The westbound train leaves Halkalı at 21:40 to reach Sofia by 09:00 and Bucharest by 19:00 next day. From October to May the through-train from Bucharest doesn't run, so you change at Ruse then again at Kapıkule, with a similar timetable. The standard of accommodation aboard is similar to the Turkish domestic conventional trains. Bring your own food and drink. Romania to Turkey tickets can be bought online from CFR but have to be picked up at the station. As couchettes sell out quickly buying online is probably wise. Turkey to Romania tickets cannot be bought online from TCDD but can be bought at Istanbul Sirkeci.

Istanbul railways are being rebuilt, it feels like since Ottoman times. The international trains terminate at Halkalı 30 km west of the city centre, change here to the frequent Marmaray cross-city suburban train. Haydarpaşa, the Asia-side terminus, is closed during the rebuilding, so for onward travel take the Marmaray to the temporary Asia terminus at Istanbul Söğütlüçeşme.

Optima Express runs a car-train between Villach in Austria and Edirne about twice a week April-November (but suspended in 2023), taking 33 hours. Departure days vary. This train enables motorists to avoid the tricky, tiring roads through the Balkans; however it is also open for passengers without cars with the caveat that you can't get on or off at any of the intermediate stations such as Zagreb.

From Greece no train crosses the border, but you can take a local train from Alexandroupolis to the border post near Edirne. From Georgia the international railway opened in 2017 but to date only carries freight. From Tehran and Tabriz in Iran a weekly train ran to Van: this remains suspended in 2023. From Van you take a ferry across the lake to Tatvan (or a dolmuş round the lake shore in a fraction of the time) to join the train to Sivas and Ankara. There are no plans to build a connecting railway around the lake. From Damascus and Aleppo in Syria and from Baghdad and Mosul in Iraq the lines are wrecked. The line from Gyumri in Armenia has not been used since the border was closed in 1993, and there is no railway from the Azerbaijan exclave of Nakhchivan.

Reservations are essential for YHT trains and recommended for other mainline services. YHT and conventional mainline (anahat) trains are best booked via the TCDD website. International trains (uluslararası) can be booked by other methods (below) but not via the website; and some regional (bölgesel) trains are not bookable and may not even be shown on the website. TCDD connecting buses are considered trains, and booked in the same way. Consult the timetable first, for the latest on timings and disruptions.

Then to buy your ticket, move to the reservation system, but this only opens 15 to 30 days in advance – look further ahead and it will seem like there aren’t any trains. Pick your preferred train service and seat or berth, whereupon the system will display the price and give you the choice of immediate purchase, or of holding the option for a few days. Immediately note your confirmation number, and print your ticket at home whenever convenient: it doesn’t need validating at the station. Alternatively install the TCDD app on your phone and buy the ticket on that so railway officials can scan it on request.

The Inter Rail Global Pass and Balkan Flexipass are valid for all trains within Turkey (but as of 2023 you may find domestic Turkish trains so cheap that it is not worth using a day of your pass) and the trains to and from Europe, but you may still need a seat reservation. TCDD also offer discounts for those under 26 (genç bilet, whether or not you’re a student) and for those over 60 (yaşlı bilet). Check their website for other discount offers, but usually these are aimed at commuters and others making multiple repeat journeys.

Tickets can also be bought from the stations (either at the counter, or from self-service kiosks), from travel agents, or from PTT post offices. The main stations (including the trainless Sirkeci) accept credit cards and can book you onto any bookable train, but they won’t accept non-Turkish cash. And nowadays you may struggle to find a money-changer, as they’re replaced by ATMs. If you have just got off the train from Bulgaria you will be glad to know there is a Marmaray ticket machine at Halkalı which will probably accept your card.

Advance reservations are strongly recommended during summer, on Fridays and Sundays, and around public holidays and religious festivals. Of course you may be able to get a reservation for immediate departure, and conventional trains usually have non-bookable seats, and a scrummage on the platform to claim them. Bear in mind that the main stations may involve a queue for security just to get into the station hall, another queue for tickets, then a further queue for security and document-check to get onto the platform. You can’t just rock up and jump on.

Old locomotives stand outside several stations, and Ankara, Istanbul Sirkeci and Çamlık (south of Selçuk) stations have railway museums. But for the most part, riding the conventional trains is an immersive heritage experience in itself. Atatürk took one look at the sorry state of the railways and declared that what Turkey urgently needed was an air service.

The old jibe is that the railway constructors were paid by the mile, hence the convoluted routes. The reality (as elsewhere in the Balkans) is that they were built by a poor nation with rugged terrain and limited engineering capability, but with inexpensive materials and dirt-cheap labour. The lines necessarily followed the contours instead of drilling through mountains or soaring across valleys. The workforce navvied under blizzards and baking sun, and no sooner done than they were packed off in troop trains to some Ottoman battlefield; the Taurus crossing built under World War I conditions between Karaisalı and Pozantı is a case in point. Raise a non-alcoholic toast to them as your YHT flashes high above Kırıkkale: Allah'a ısmarladık.

The best-known piece of Turkish railway heritage is Murder on the Orient Express – the fictional action is westbound in the Balkans, but it was inspired by an incident at Çerkezköy in 1929, when the Orient Express from Paris really did get stuck in the snow for five days. Agatha Christie was not aboard that train but often travelled that way to Turkey and beyond. She had ample time, as Thrace and Anatolia slid by outside the window, to think of grisly fictional fates for her fellow-passengers.

• Turkey: Get in – most visitors arrive by air.
• Bucharest for accommodation, as by train you probably have to stay there overnight, and it has several sights worth taking in.