TCDD Açık Hava Buharlı Lokomotif Müzesi

The TCDD Open Air Steam Locomotive Museum is a railway museum where the Turkish State Railways display their Ankara collection of steam locomotives in the open air. The museum opened in 1991 on the land of Ankara Station facing Celal Bayar Boulevard, right next to the station. When that land was needed for the construction of the high-speed rail station and the Başkentray commuter line, the locomotives were moved together on 5 December 2013 to the TCDD facilities at Behiçbey. Reporting the move in 2014, the journal Kent ve Demiryolu wrote that the locomotives had been neatly arranged at their new site beside the sports field, facing the silos of the Turkish Grain Board. Today the museum stands in the Gazi neighbourhood of Yenimahalle district, next to the TCDD Ankara 2nd Regional Directorate; the Turkish Wikipedia article still gives the old address and the 1991-2013 operating period. According to the same article some of the pieces went to the garden of the METU Science and Technology Museum; a travel writer who visited the new site in 2021, however, counted eleven locomotives there, one of them a miniature. The backbone of the collection is ten large steam locomotives built between 1912 and 1948 in Germany, Sweden, the United States and Britain. The oldest is the German engine No. 44015, built in 1912. The Henschel works' locomotives No. 34061 of 1930, No. 57007 of 1932 and No. 56504 of 1943 represent the German school. No. 55047, built in 1924, also comes from Germany, from the Schwartzkopff works. No. 45035, built by the Swedish firm NOHAB in 1932, Baldwin's No. 45174 of 1943 and the American No. 46224 of 1942 form the second generation of the collection. No. 56086, built at the Vulcan Foundry in Britain in 1948 just after the Second World War, and No. 56375, built at the Vulcan Iron Works in America, are two machines produced on two different continents in the same year. No. 56375, with its red-painted connecting rods and the large lamps on its front, is one of the most striking pieces in the museum. Alongside the locomotives, a wooden passenger carriage built by the German Beuchelt works in 1909 and a restaurant car are displayed. The wooden carriage is presented as one of the rare pieces of railway history. Coal cranes and a water pump show the auxiliary equipment needed to feed a locomotive in the age of steam. The smallest piece in the collection is the miniature locomotive built entirely in Turkey at the Eskişehir Railway Factory in 1957; for years this little train carried children around Gençlik Park. The museum is not a building but an open space of machines lined up on rails; a visit takes less than an hour. The locomotives stand along the tracks; the number on each is enough to look up its year of construction and its builder. It is possible to look at the machines up close; to see the boiler, cylinders and connecting rods you need to walk to the end of the row. The best light for photographs is in the morning; the black bodies lose their contrast in the midday sun. A visitor's notes from 2021 record that the miniature locomotive looked in need of care; because the museum lies inside a working railway facility, its appearance may change from time to time. In some sources the museum is called the TCDD Historic Locomotive Museum or the Open-Air Steam Locomotive Museum. The sign at the entrance, "Travel, tomorrow may be too late", is often quoted on visitor platforms. Sources say the museum can be visited during working hours with permission from TCDD. Before you go, confirm the current visiting arrangements on TCDD's museums page or with the 2nd Regional Directorate; the site is inside a working railway facility. Sources give different information on entrance fees and hours; visitor platforms state that entry is free. For reaching the museum, the Behiçbey and Gazi stations of the Başkentray commuter line are the nearest rail stops; from both a walk or a short bus ride is needed. The bus stops on Anadolu Boulevard and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Boulevard are within walking distance of the museum. Those coming by car head from Anadolu Boulevard towards the TCDD 2nd Regional Directorate. Anyone wanting to gather Ankara's railway history in a single day can combine this museum with the Atatürk Residence and Railways Museum of the War of Independence at Ankara Station and with Gazi Railway Station. Other parts of the TCDD museum network include the Malıköy Station Museum at Polatlı. Turkey's other large open-air locomotive museum is Çamlık near Selçuk; the Ankara collection is smaller but offers a lesson in engineering history through the variety of its builders. Autumn and spring are the most suitable seasons for walking around the open site; in winter the wind blows hard across the open ground of the facility.