Çamlık Buharlı Lokomotif Müzesi

At Çamlık, about 7 kilometres south of Selçuk, this open-air museum built on the tracks of an old station is the largest railway museum in Türkiye. The site is the Aziziye station of the İzmir-Aydın line, the first railway in Anatolia; according to Wikipedia the station opened on 1 July 1866. When the line was rerouted in 1991 the station closed, and in the same year the idea of gathering steam locomotives here was born. Sources differ on the opening year; the visitizmir page says the museum opened on 28 September 1991, while the Türkiye Tourism Encyclopaedia and Wikipedia say the collection was opened to visitors in its present form in 1997. The museum was founded to preserve and display steam locomotives that are becoming ever rarer in the world. The land, the buildings and the collection belong to the Turkish State Railways, TCDD; the museum is run by Atilla Mısırlıoğlu under a 99-year lease. According to the Türkiye Tourism Encyclopaedia the grounds cover 160 decares and hold one of the largest steam locomotive collections in Europe. More than thirty steam locomotives stand on the site; sources give the number as between 30 and 37. Their build years run from the late 1880s to the 1950s, and the oldest came from the English works of Robert Stephenson. Machines built by Henschel, Krupp and Maffei in Germany, NOHAB in Sweden and ALCO, Lima and Vulcan in America are lined up beside those from France and Czechoslovakia. According to the Wikipedia breakdown, of the eighteen German-built locomotives eight are Henschel and three are Krupp; there are four from Britain, four from France, three from America, two from Sweden and one from Czechoslovakia. Half of the locomotives are arranged like a fan around an 18-road turntable; this layout is the most photographed corner of the museum. A wood-burning English-built locomotive is, according to the sources, one of only two surviving examples in the world. According to the Türkiye Tourism Encyclopaedia the collection also includes a three-cylinder locomotive built in Germany during the Second World War. Locomotive number 45501, which was hauling the Orient Express in the Yarımburgaz train disaster of 1957, is displayed here too. The collection has nine passenger and seven freight wagons; two of the passenger cars have wooden bodies. Four cranes, water pumps, a water tower, a diesel tank, a water crane and a repair workshop show the other parts of a working railway. According to the Selçuk Municipality page the grounds also contain a toilet dating from 1850 and an old tunnel 900 metres long. The museum's most special piece is the saloon car Atatürk used in 1937. The car is preserved with its original furnishings, with a meeting room, a fully equipped kitchen, a bathroom and bedrooms, and it can be entered. In a separate room, photographs taken on Atatürk's train journeys are on display. Because the museum was laid out on the grounds of the old Aziziye station, you walk among the tracks and the fabric of the station. You can climb into the cabs of most of the locomotives; the plaque in front of each vehicle gives its build year, the line it ran on and its speed. For children the place is like a playground, but keep an eye on them, because the steps are high and the metal surfaces get hot in summer. Early in the morning the light is soft and the grounds are quiet; photograph the area around the turntable at that hour. A visit takes an hour; for those who go into the wagons and read every plaque it stretches to two. The grounds lie under pine trees but are in the open air; in summer bring a hat and water. The museum is open seven days a week; check the current opening hours and admission fee on the museum's or Selçuk Municipality's website. The address is Atatürk Street in Çamlık neighbourhood; it is ten minutes by car from Selçuk. According to Wikipedia it can also be reached by TCDD regional trains; confirm with TCDD before setting out whether the services stop at Çamlık. Thanks to its closeness to Ephesus, the House of the Virgin Mary and Kuşadası, the museum is a regular stop for Turkish and foreign tour groups. Coming from Selçuk the road continues towards Aydın; the Belevi Mausoleum lies in the opposite direction, on the İzmir side, and it is possible to visit both in one day by car.