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Ankara's Railway Story

One of the things that turned Ankara into a capital was the railway. When the line from Istanbul reached the city on the last day of 1892, Ankara was an Anatolian town trading in mohair and grain.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye15 Ekim 2026
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Ankara's Railway Story

One of the things that turned Ankara into a capital was the railway. When the line from Istanbul reached the city on the last day of 1892, Ankara was an Anatolian town trading in mohair and grain. Thirty years later the small stone building of that same station became the headquarters of a war, and forty five years later one of the most impressive buildings of the Republic rose beside it. Today Başkentray commuter trains, high speed trains and the Doğu Ekspresi share the platforms of the same station. This article tells Ankara's railway story in order and suggests how you can follow its traces with a single train line.

The rails reach the city

Railway building in Anatolia began in the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz, on the Asian side of Istanbul. The first section from Haydarpaşa to Pendik opened in 1872 and the stretch to İzmit in 1873. Carrying the line on to Ankara stalled for a long time because no money could be found. In the end Deutsche Bank won the concession, and on 4 October 1888 the Ottoman Anatolian Railway company, known in French as Chemins de Fer Ottomans d'Anatolie, was founded. Construction towards Ankara began in May 1889 and the line opened to Ankara on 31 December 1892.

For a while Ankara remained the end of the line. Before the First World War the mohair and wool the city exported were already being carried to Istanbul on this railway. During the war the company's trains carried supplies to the fronts; according to the English Wikipedia, no passenger trains ran at Ankara station between 1914 and 1918.

The Direksiyon Building, a station that became a headquarters

Ankara's first station is the small two storey stone building that today stands inside the station complex. Built in 1892 for the railway administration during the construction of the line, it is called the Direksiyon Building. After the Armistice of Mudros, the command staff of the British unit that came to the city stayed here. When the National Struggle began, the building became the residence and headquarters of Mustafa Kemal. Sources differ on the starting date: the Culture Portal writes that the building was assigned to him from 27 December 1919, while Wikipedia says the Ziraat Mektebi was used in the first months and that he moved into the building in 1920. The signing ceremony of the Treaty of Ankara with France took place in this building on 21 October 1921.

The building opened on 24 December 1964 as the Atatürk Residence and Railway Museum. The Culture Portal presents it as the first corporate museum with private museum status under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The ground floor is a railway museum: documents related to railways since 1856, switches, rail samples, silver service sets used in dining and sleeping cars, old tickets, locomotive plates, telephone and telegraph machines are displayed here. The gold plated miniature carriage presented by the British government to Sultan Abdülaziz and the steam locomotive model presented by the German railway administration to Behiç Erkin, the first director general of TCDD, are the pieces visitors look at most. İbrahim Çallı's large painting of three metres by two, Women Pulling Ox Carts in the War of Independence, also hangs on this floor. The upper floor is arranged as a residence with a reception room, a study and a bedroom. Look at the outside of the building too: with stone corners and wooden eaves, its only ornament is its keystone arched windows. This plain facade also appeared in 2004 in a postage stamp series on Atatürk's houses.

A white painted carriage stands beside the museum. Built in Germany, this special car was used by Atatürk on his tours of the country between 1935 and 1938, and on 19 and 20 November 1938 it carried his body from İzmit to Ankara.

Nationalising the railway and new stations

In the first years of the Republic, railway management passed step by step to the state. On 3 March 1924 the country's first national railway company, the Anatolian-Baghdad Railways, was founded; in 1927 the lines were nationalised, and in 1929 the General Directorate of State Railways, the forerunner of today's TCDD, took over. New stations were added around Ankara in these years. Kayaş Station, on the Ankara to Kars line heading east, opened on 20 November 1925. To the west, on the land of the Atatürk Forest Farm, Gazi Station, designed by Burhanettin Tamcı in the First National Architecture style, entered service on 1 February 1926. Gazi's historic building still stands today; the side platform in front of it is closed to passengers and trains leave from the island platform beside it.

In the same period, repair workshops for the maintenance of trains were built behind the station. Built in 1926 and 1927, these workshops were used until 1995. Two of the three buildings were later badly damaged; the one that survived was restored to a design by the architects Semra and Özcan Uygur and opened in 2010 as an art centre named CerModern. Visiting an exhibition inside a high ceilinged railway workshop is the easiest way to see Ankara's industrial heritage today.

The 1937 station, gateway to the capital

The first station building was not enough for a city that had become the capital. Drilling work for the new station designed by the architect Şekip Akalın began in November 1934, the foundation was laid on 3 November 1935 and the building opened on 30 October 1937. Akalın conceived the station not only as a station but as a complex with its own station gazino, staff housing and administrative buildings. The structure has a reinforced concrete frame and is clad outside in Ankara stone. The monumental columns at the entrance and the rounded lines of the stair towers show the neoclassical and modern tendencies of the 1930s side by side. The central hall, lit from two facades and from above, is spanned by a 23 metre steel truss. The chrome plated metal details and marble turnstiles at the entrances deserve a close look. In 2005 the Chamber of Civil Engineers of TMMOB included the station in its list of 50 Works in 50 Years.

After the station opened, Ankara became a hub of long distance travel. The English Wikipedia writes that an overnight sleeper train called the Anatolian Express started between Istanbul and Ankara in 1927, that the Dokuz Eylül Ekspresi to İzmir and the Doğu Ekspresi to Kars were added in 1939, and the Güney Ekspresi to Kurtalan in 1944. Today mainline trains such as the Doğu Ekspresi, the Van Gölü Ekspresi, the İzmir Mavi Treni and the Ankara Ekspresi leave from the same platforms.

From commuter train to Başkentray

The line between Sincan and Kayaş was doubled and electrified in 1970, and commuter trains began running in 1972. For forty four years these trains linked the settlements in the west of the city to the centre. The line was closed for renewal on 11 July 2016 and reopened as Başkentray on 12 April 2018. Today the 37.472 kilometre line has 24 stations; during the renewal the number of stations fell from 28 to 24. The train passes through the districts of Sincan, Etimesgut, Yenimahalle, Altındağ, Çankaya and Mamak in that order. You can change to the Ankaray at Ankara Garı and Kurtuluş, and to the metro at Ankara Garı and Yenişehir.

The high speed era

Türkiye's first high speed train service started between Ankara and Eskişehir on 13 March 2009. The Konya line followed on 23 August 2011 and the Istanbul line on 25 July 2014. For the growing number of passengers, the Ankara High Speed Train Station was built right next to the old station and entered service on 29 October 2016. The new building sits above three 400 metre island platforms and is linked to the old station by a footbridge. The high speed section of Kayaş Station also opened on 26 April 2023. So the city that was the end of the line in 1892 has become the centre of the country's high speed network.

Where the locomotives are

For many years there was an open air steam locomotive museum on the Celal Bayar Bulvarı side of the station. The locomotives of this site, opened in 1991, were moved to TCDD's Behiç Bey facilities on 5 December 2013 because of the construction of the high speed station; some of them now stand in the open air exhibition of the METU Science and Technology Museum. If you want to see the locomotives, we recommend checking current visiting information with the institutions concerned.

West of the city, in Polatlı, a station itself became a museum. Malıköy Station, used as the army's logistics centre, infirmary and ammunition store during the Battle of Sakarya, opened on 1 June 2008 as the TCDD Malıköy Train Station Museum. The museum displays an 1897 German locomotive and a 1909 carriage used in that battle.

A day with Başkentray

You can follow this story along a single line. Start in the morning in the west at Gazi Station and look at the 1926 building from across the platform. Take the train to Ankara Garı and see first the Atatürk Residence and Railway Museum, then the white carriage beside it. Pause for a while in the central hall of the 1937 station and look at the steel truss and the stone cladding. From there you can walk to CerModern in the old repair workshop. If you like, end the day by riding the train to the eastern end of the line at Kayaş, which opened in 1925.

Practical notes

You need an AnkaraKart to enter the Başkentray platforms. Because train intervals and museum visiting hours can change, check the current information on the official pages of TCDD Taşımacılık and of the museums. Some corporate museums may be closed at weekends and on public holidays; it is worth checking before you set out.

Sources

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