Tunnel in Turkey linking Europe to asia .

here is a website describing the project . Seems its primarily a commuter line , with some long distance trains planned , and possibly some freight in the future .
http://www.marmaray.com/html/general.html

i actually got the link for tunnels and tunneling international magazine . may issue , which gets sent to me for some reason .

they provided this link .
http://www.pbworld.com/news_events/publ ... _index.asp

David Benton wrote:here is a website describing the project . Seems its primarily a commuter line , with some long distance trains planned , and possibly some freight in the future .
http://www.marmaray.com/html/general.html

i actually got the link for tunnels and tunneling international magazine . may issue , which gets sent to me for some reason .

they provided this link .
http://www.pbworld.com/news_events/publ ... _index.asp

There don't seem to be many details in these links. I wonder if they have been ambitious enough. The potential for freight would seem to me much greater than "a few freight trains". To the west is western Europe. To the east is Iran and potentially the whole Middle East. Beyond that, potentially, South Asia (if the Zahedan link is ever built). There is even some potential from former Soviet Central Asia, where there is a desire to get away from Russian monopoly of transport links.
I hope the Turks have at the least allowed land for the later building of freight facilities, if they haven't built some to begin with.
The rising price of oil is going to have its effects here, too. Rail transport is going to gain against sea transport.

The magazine article mentions "a small amount of freight " . I think they mean small , as in the number of trains . obviously there will be alot less freight trains than there would be commuter trains . I would say the amount of freight would be goverened by wether peace is acheived in Iran and Iraq .
Though i quess freight up through the southern states that were part of the USSR is a possiblity ???

David Benton wrote:The magazine article mentions "a small amount of freight " . I think they mean small , as in the number of trains . obviously there will be alot less freight trains than there would be commuter trains . I would say the amount of freight would be goverened by whether peace is acheived in Iran and Iraq .
Though i quess freight up through the southern states that were part of the USSR is a possiblity ???

It would be interesting to find some documents on what is planned. Really, this tunnel could be as important as the Channel Tunnel, which admittedly forecast far more freight than actually appeared. If the Turkish tunnel is run like Eurotunnel there could be slots for local trains - the equivalent of Shuttles - some for long distance trains - the equivalent of Eurostar - and slots for freight.

Freight from Iran could come now as there is a direct line from Iran to Turkey, though there is a train ferry on Lake Van. There are connections to Azerbaijan and Georgia. Of course if the Americans invade Iran, as I suppose they still might, or Israel, that would depress traffic potential, but we have to hope for better times if the current regime comes to an end.

I'm sure there are quite detailed plans , but i geuss after turkish and Japanese , which are the main countries involved , english reports come way down the list .
Hopefully stability will come to the region , and then projects like this can prosper .