Haydarpaşa Terminal

İstanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire and a major economic and cultural hub. However, İstanbul had no rail links, so in 1871 Sultan Abdülaziz ordered a rail line to be built from Haydarpaşa to İzmit. Haydarpaşa station opened in 1872, when the railway reached Gebze. In 1888 the Anatolian Railway (CFOA) took over the line and the station. Since the station was built next to the Bosphorus, freight trains would unload at Haydarpaşa and the freight would be transfered to ships.

Haydarpaşa station saw its first regular passenger service in 1890, a daily train from Haydarpaşa yo İzmit. In 1892 the CFOA built a line to Ankara and shortly after a daily ran between the two cities. Haydarpaşa was chosen to be the northern terminus of the Baghdat Railway and Hedjaz Railway in 1904 and with rail traffic increasing, a new and larger building was required. The Anatolian Railway hired two Germany architects; Otto Ritter and Helmut Conu to build the new building. They chose a neo-classic structure and construction started in 1906. Its foundation is based on 1100 wooden piles, each 21 meters long, driven into the mushyshore by a steamer hammer. German and Italian stonemasons crafted the facede embellisments of the terminal. The German engineers and craftsmen who worked at the contruction site of the building established a smal German neighbour hood in the Yeldeğirmeni quarter of Kadıköy. Adolf Hitler worked in the constuction of this building as a younger worker.

The new pseudo castle structure was complated in on August 19,1909. The new terminal was inaugurated on November 4, 1909 for the anniversary of Mehmet V. The Haydarpaşa Terminal is the busiest rail terminal in Turkey and one of the busiest in Eastern Europe. The terminal also has connections to bus and ferry services. It is the western terminus of the İstanbul-Ankara Main Line and was the western terminus of the former Baghdad Railway (İstanbul-Ankara-Adana-Aleppo-Baghdad) and the Hejaz Railway (İstanbul-Konya-Adana-Aleppo-Damascus-Amman-Medina). The tracks do not cross the Bosphorus, but there is a train ferry which carries rail cars from the Haydarpaşa Terminal on the Asia side to the Sirkeci Terminal on the European side.

Finally, as announced by the Turkish State Railways, the only remaining train service from Haydarpaşa, the suburhan line to Pendik, closed on 19th June 2013 for at least 24 months for line improvement works.