Human Reaching Railroad

There Is Another Message From London

Today, a very valuable elder from London, from Inebolu, sent a message again. The subject is Düzce-Bartın Railway Project. I would like to share the message of this esteemed elder without touching even a comma:

“Hodja Selahattin, England opened a railway loan to Turkey, the amount is seriously big, it seems to me that the Bartın Railway project is included in this, but I am not sure, it would be great if this train route extends to İnebolu. Let's follow this carefully, it will bring great opportunities for İnebolu. I am sure. The amount is $2.3 billion, it is very important that the line is extended to İnebolu. At least, opening the İnebolu Bartın highway would be very valuable.”

From Istiklal Road to Istikbal Road: Western Black Sea High Speed Train Line

While I was waiting for the publication of my first article about High Speed Train lines, a new message came: “The 3 common points of countries and peoples that are big around the world are seen very clearly. (1) maritime power, (2) rail network, and (3) air dominance. The parallel continuation of the railway going up to Bartın to İnebolu and even the Black Sea coastal road, the fact that İnebolu Port, which has a wide range of possibilities, has become an important container port in the Black Sea and becomes the commercial center of the region, and İnebolu's aviation sub-industry is developed. I think we all need support! It is true if we say that it will take years to do this, but the Material and Spiritual Development of the Beauties of Nature is the First Step of This Spiritual Support! Being aware of this, the support we need to give to our Martyrs, Veterans, Commanders, Orphans and Orphans, and our State is revealed. For the sake of these beautiful mornings, for the love of this green homeland, I wish you all a day full of love and respect from abroad. You will make us very happy if you can share the longing for the Homeland of our expatriates because you are perhaps close to that beautiful smell of soil in Turkey.”

Great Railroad Borrowing from England and Its Nature

I looked at the news. The title and content confirm this: “Britain agrees record $2.3 bln export finance deal to fund Turkish railway[i]

Financing is reserved for the 508 km Ankara-İzmir high-speed train line. Another source states this[ii]: “The UK has agreed on Thursday the largest ever civil infrastructure export financing agreement to undertake a high-speed rail link between Turkey's capital Ankara and a major port in the west in Izmir. ”

According to the treasury ministry, England will sell its own goods to Turkey with this money.

Turkish Railway History

Railways emerged as the locomotive of the Industrial Revolution about 200 years ago. It spread to the world from Scotland, England, America and Continental Europe, respectively. The march, which started with the 1851 Cairo-Alexandria Line, entered the Anatolian lands from Izmir in 1856. Today, the railways have become a giant industrial and service network that is about to reach one and a half million kilometers of network.

More than one third (4,500 km) of the railways of the Republic of Turkey today is the legacy of the State-i Aliye, which has built approximately 9,000 km of railways. During the period of M. Kemal Atatürk, 200 km of railways were built per year under difficult conditions and around 3,000 km of railway network was built. This length corresponds to two-thirds of the railway heritage remaining from the Ottoman Great State.

II for railways. It can be said that the 1938-1950 period under the shadow of the World War II and the 2003-2023 period were parallel periods due to the mediocre results such as the annual 95 km railway network.

In the 1950-1980 period, the railways were clearly neglected. “While the highway was seen as a system that would feed and complement the railway in the transportation policies implemented until 1950, with the help of Marshall, the railways were almost ignored and highway construction started. In the planned development periods after 1960, the targets foreseen for the railways can never be achieved. Between 1950 and 1980, only 30 km per year. a new line is made.[iii]”

“In the mid-1980s, a rapid road construction campaign begins in our country, and highways are considered as the 3rd biggest project of our country after the GAP and tourism. In this framework, until the mid-1990s, approximately 2 billion dollars of investment is made for highways per year.[iv]" So why was the railways neglected yesterday and why did the "old mule of transportation" become the "rising princess of travel" today?

Why was the railway neglected yesterday?

The railroad was actually never neglected in Western Europe and the USA. As a matter of fact, the EU and the USA are the countries with the most railways ahead of China, India and Russia.

In addition to liberal democracy, the railway was presented as an important apparatus of communism to the countries where these countries exported oil. And this is how capitalism shows its brutal face. Developing countries, which are already foreign-dependent, are completely stuck in debt.

The choice of highway has become a political choice, not an economic one, but a coercion, which is a modern method of exploitation. Societies that consume and that do not produce had to establish relations with their suppliers that could be considered dependent, unequal and obligatory.

There was no oil, we did not drink, and we never looked for mass and private vehicle models to replace oil and the private vehicles that consume it the most.

We always had excuses.

Why is the railroad popular today?

Today, the “tortoise” that breaks its shell runs like a “hound” and stretches like a “centipede”. In the near future, customers will prefer high-speed trains rather than wasting time with airport connections and procedural or planes losing speed during takeoff and landing.

Indeed, China is now a leading country testing magnetic trains at 600 km/h, aiming to double the length of high-speed train lines that can circumnavigate the globe by 2035, and likely triple by then. With its laws requiring 70-90% of railway equipment to be produced domestically, China allows local suppliers to reproduce their vehicle designs in their own factories as a result of technology transfer agreements with foreign partners.

While ten years ago, "According to the plan adopted by the country, the total railway network is expected to reach approximately 150,000 km, over 120,700 km, in 2020, of which 25,750 km is high-speed lines"[v], now "China is the world's longest high-speed line with 40,000 km. It is a country that has a high-speed rail network” and a “cost advantage of around 20 million dollars per kilometer[vi]”.

“Spain is a strong country in the rail sector, maintaining Europe's largest program of high-speed rail construction. It wants to reach its goal of 6,200 miles (9,977 km) by 2020. Japan remains a pioneer and world leader in the development of high-speed rail technologies.” [vii] Germany, France, Italy, England, Spain have developed much more than Turkey in this area.[viii] According to the “Roadmap for a Single European Transport Area (2011)”, “the current high-speed train lines will be tripled by 2030, 2050 Completion of the European high-speed train network until the year 2020” and thus “transferring a large part of the medium-distance passenger transport to the railways[ix]”, despite the uncoordination in the loose order of the EU.

Because “Increasing fuel prices, traffic congestion and emission values around the world highlight the gains of public transportation against traveling by car. In this context, the opening of urban light rail systems and high-speed train corridors attracts the attention of the transportation sector and ensures the development of investments. he does not choose any of the car preferences, he prefers the High Speed Train option.[xi]

High Speed Train Lines and Projects in Turkey

When I took the high-speed train to the airport before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, I didn't know that this was just the beginning. I was amazed when I saw that 40,000 kilometers of high-speed train lines were produced in 14 years. Turkey got a high-speed train with the Ankara-Eskişehir Line in 2009, just one year after China. “While it is aimed to reach more than 10 thousand kilometers of YHT lines in 2023,[xii]" today, unfortunately, the line length remains only at the level of the zakat of the network produced in China.

Although it is clear that it will not reach 2023, the projects included in the Republic Target of Turkey's 100th Year Target 10.000 km High Speed Train Line are as follows[xiii]:

* Ankara-Istanbul * Ankara-Eskişehir * Istanbul-Eskişehir * Konya-Istanbul * Konya-Ankara

* Sivas-Ankara * Sivas-Istanbul * Bursa-Ankara * Bursa-Istanbul * Sivas-Erzurum-Kars

* Konya-Manavgat-Antalya * Ankara-İzmir * İstanbul-Kapıkule * Bursa-Bandırma-İzmir

* Antalya-Alanya * Erzincan-Trabzon * Kayseri-Ankara * Kayseri-Istanbul * Eskisehir-Antalya

* Sivas-Malatya-Diyarbakır * Gaziantep-Aleppo and newly added *Aşkale-Rize Line[xiv]

Railroad to Coal

The Western Black Sea region is famous for its history, culture, patriotism, and homogeneity of human structure despite the diversity of its flora and fauna.

The view from the War of Independence to the present is as follows:

The male population holding a gun has been broken to a large extent. With the Forest Law, agricultural areas were narrowed, and concessions such as hazelnut and tea, which would eliminate the negativity of this, were not visited in the region. Main roads and country roads are the worst roads in Turkey, the Black Sea Coastal Road is not completed only in this region. Modern schools and vocational high schools were not substituted for the closed neighborhood schools and other institutions. Even though ministers occasionally come out of the region, the absence of senior executives at the Prime Minister and President level prevented the attraction of projects like GAP-DAP-KAP that will ensure the development of the region. The forest existence has been deprived of a business quality that will develop the local people. However, in Turkey, cities untouched by the state cannot develop. As a matter of fact, in 2021, TURKSTAT declared the Western Black Sea Region as the poorest region.

However, Zonguldak is the land of Black Diamond. It has been meeting the country's coal-based energy needs for many years. “For the place where the Iron and Steel Factory will be established in 1932; Zonguldak is 70 km. In the town of Safranbolu in its inner part, Karabük Village, at the intersection of Soğanlı and Araç streams, is a suitable place.”[xv] The region also becomes important in terms of railways. As a matter of fact, “214.390 tons of rails were procured between 2009-2012 and 80.000 tons in 2013 from Kardemir, which is the most important element of the railway superstructure, in the supply of rails.” [xvi]

The railway to the region extends to coal. Black Diamond is dispersed all over the country from these rails, and the forests of the region clear the carbon dioxide that will arise for the country.

Independence Road

Until the 2000s, the compatriots, especially in Istanbul, organized non-governmental activities that included the effort to prove the existence of the people of the region. He tried to create a culture of solidarity. Afterwards, he developed a culture of inquiry and discovered that he could not receive service in proportion to his large-scale martyr ancestors in Çanakkale and the War of Independence and his contribution to national independence. On the contrary, it has been the region that received the least investment in the country.

The works of non-governmental organizations and the historical acquis worked to some extent and the Historical Independence Road was completed: “The ammunition taken from İnebolu was 344 km from Ankara, beyond the provincial borders of Kastamonu, Çankırı. The road to independence is the way that enables Anatolian people with their women, children and elderly people to move to the front at a distance, and the successful conclusion of our War of Independence.”[xvii] In the shadow of heroes such as Şerife Bacılar, Rahime Kaptanlar, Halime Sergeants and Sarı Seyin Sons, we prevent further delays in the Independence Road Project. was passed.

From Istiklal Road to Istikbal Road: Western Black Sea High Speed Train Line

The Adapazarı-Bartın railway project, which was announced in 2004, was to be completed in 2020[xviii] Not only that the project, which was adjusted for 120 km/h speed, was insufficient, it was never done and left to the end like the Black Sea Coastal road, once again deeply upsetting the people of the region who are always with their country.

This railway should be revised as a project that will make us smile on the 100th Anniversary of the Republic and the works should be started parallel to the Black Sea Coastal Road without waiting.

Railways are the ways of prosperity and civilization of the Turkish nation. High developments of economic life in Turkey will only happen by railroads. The happiness and future of the nation will pass through these roads.[xix]

The high-speed railway will increase the high standard of living and the happiness of our people.

“According to the statement made by the relevant authority at the highest level, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of railway system, signaling and electrification equipment produced in England is expected to be used in the project”[xx]. By following the successful Chinese policy, it should be ensured that up to 90 percent of these systems and equipment are produced in Turkey, developed and reproduced.

It is clear that the use of such new resources in the construction of YHT lines to underdeveloped regions such as the Western Black Sea region will be a unique opportunity for national and regional development, and it will undoubtedly provide economic, cultural, social and human development.

Of the $500 billion debt, $5 billion in debt is one percent.

This is enough for both İzmir and the Western Black Sea Region.

This time, the Bandırma Ship should say vira bismillah for the İSTİKBAL ROAD on the route from Istanbul to Samsun, Düzce, Filyos, Cide, İnebolu, Sinop. On solid railway tracks to be procured from Karabük.

Human Reaching Railroad

The railway to coal must now extend to man.

High-speed rail should quickly infuse life and youth into a region that has neither mega-projects nor regional projects and is constantly aging.

It should be accessible in 2-3 hours from Istanbul-Cide and 4-5 hours from Istanbul-Samsun.

Tourism must be revived, New Switzerland must become one of the world's centers of attraction. Besides mountains, valleys, canyons and lakes, the Black Sea should come to life quickly.

Local people deserve it.