Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

Marmaray Project
Marmaray Project is the acronym for Turkish words of Marmara and Ray as Marmara meaning the Marmara Sea and Ray meaning ‘Railway’. Marmaray Project is the key to success to the project called Iron Silk Road which aims at restructuring the historical Silk Road or Silk Route.

Marmaray is the name of a project to link the European and Asian halves of Istanbul by an undersea rail tunnel across the Bosphorus strait. The name Marmaray (Marmara Rail) comes from combining the name of the Sea of Marmara, which lies just south of the project site, with ray, the Turkish word for rail.

The Details of Marmaray Project
The Marmaray project includes a 13.6 km Bosphorus crossing and the upgrade of 63 km of suburban train lines to create a 76.3 km high capacity line between Gebze and Halkalı. The Bosphorus (Istanbul Strait) will be crossed by a 1.4 km earthquake-proof immersed tube, assembled from 11 sections, each as long as 440 feet and weighing up to 18,000 tons. The sections will be placed 56 meters below sea level, under 180 feet of water and 15 feet of earth. This tube will be accessed by bored tunnels from Kazlıçeşme on the European side and Ayrılıkçeşme on the Asian side of Istanbul. New underground stations will be built at Yenikapı, Sirkeci, and Üsküdar, and 37 other above-ground stations along the line will be rebuilt or refurbished. The station at Yenikapi will connect with Istanbul metro and light rail. The upgrade of the suburban lines requires the laying of a third track along most of the line to increase capacity to 75,000 passengers per hour in each direction. Signaling must also be modernized to allow headways of two minutes. Total travel time from Gebze to Halkalı will be 104 minutes.

Construction of the Marmaray project started in May 2004. Its completion, expected to occur in 2012,[7] is projected to increase the fraction of trips in Istanbul made by rail transport from 3.6% to 27.7%. If this takes place, Istanbul’s rail transport fraction will be third largest in the world, after Tokyo (60%) and New York City (31%).

The Marmaray project is currently two years behind schedule, largely due to the excavation of a Byzantine archaeological find on the proposed site of the European tunnel terminal. “In 2005, the dig ran into the remains of a fourth-century Constantinople port, Portus Theodosiacus.” Researchers are recovering what appears to be the only Byzantine naval vessel ever discovered, preventing the project from proceeding at full speed. Each day the tunnel’s progress is delayed is estimated to cost $1 million in revenue, yet Turkey cannot afford to destroy the site. For now the archaeological dig is taking prominence, but how the Turkish government handles the situation in the years to come is really what is in question. Some artifacts date back to the 6th millennium BC, the oldest settlements ever uncovered in Istanbul. Items found include amphorae, pottery fragments, shells, pieces of bone, horse skulls and nine human heads found in a bag.

Tunnel construction is only 12 miles from the active North Anatolian Fault, worrying engineers and seismologists. “Since AD 342, it has seen more than a dozen huge earthquakes that each claimed more than 10,000 lives.” Scientists calculate the chances of the area being hit by a quake of 7.0 or greater may be as high as 77 percent. Waterlogged, silty soil like what the tunnel is being built upon has been known to liquefy during a quake and engineers are injecting industrial grout down to 80 feet below the seabed to keep it stable. The walls of the tunnel will be made of waterproof concrete and a steel shell, each independently watertight. The tunnel is made to flex and bend similar to the way a skyscraper is constructed if an earthquake occurs. Floodgates at the joints of the tunnel are able to slam down and isolate water in the event of the walls’ failure.

Steen Lykke, project manager for Avrasyaconsult, the international consortium that’s overseeing the construction, sums it up saying, “I can’t think of any challenge this project lacks”.

Financing for Marmaray Project
The Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the European Investment Bank have provided major financing for the project. To date (April 2006), JBIC has lent 111 billion yen and EIB 1.05 billion euros. Total cost of the project is expected to be approximately 2.5 billion euros (3.6 billion dollars).

Marmaray Project Video

Iron Silk Road
Turkey is very busy nowadays with the great engineering project Iron Silk Road which will connect London to China, Malaysia and other countries. One will be able to go to London or Istanbul, or any cities in Europe or Asia from any of the membering cities in the new silk route without getting off the train. The Marmaray project in Istanbul is the key to success of the new Iron Silk Road.

What is Silk Road?
An ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean Sea extending some 6,440 km (4,000 mi) and linking China with the Roman Empire. Marco Polo followed the route on his journey to Cathay.

What is Iron Silk Road?
Iron Silk Road is the project to rebuild the old Silk Road or Silk Route in history by railway. It is a multinational project combining major European countries in Europe including England, Greece, and many others. It also includes Asian countries including China, India and Malaysia. If project is successfully finished you can go from Kuala Lumpur to London without getting off the train.

Istanbul, where giant tubes of steel are being submerged as part of an ambitious rail tunnel.

Giant tubes of steel, more than 130 metres long and weighing thousands of tonnes, are being submerged in the waters off Istanbul’s historic peninsula as part of an ambitious project to link the European side of the Turkish metropolis with its Asian part and open the way for an “Iron Silk Road” between Europe and Asia.

“You will be able to go from Europe to Asia without getting off the train,” said Serap Timur, a spokesman for Turkey’s General Directorate of Railways, Harbours and Airports Construction, or DLH. The DLH runs the ambitious Marmaray project that plans to connect Europe and Asia with a two-way rail system.

The project in the Sea of Marmara at the mouth of the Bosphorus took another step towards completion this month, when the seventh of eleven sets of double steel tubes was lowered to the sea bed. The Bosphorus, one of the world’s busiest water ways, was closed for traffic for the duration of the operation. The two pieces of steel tube separated by a dividing wall measured 135 metres in length and weighed 18,000 tonnes.

With this latest addition, the tunnel at the bottom of the sea has reached a length of 945 metres. Four more double tubes are to be put in place before the end of the year, giving the tunnel its final length of 1.4km. There will be an additional 12.2km of tunnel under land.

With the first trains planned to begin operation by 2011, Marmaray will cost an estimated US$2.6 billion (Dh9.5bn) and will be able to carry 75,000 passengers an hour between Europe and Asia when the link reaches its full capacity in 2015. The project has fallen behind schedule, however, because construction work for the tunnel and new railway stations has unearthed important archaeological finds from the Roman and Byzantine periods, including 32 ancient ships.

Marmaray is to ease inner-city traffic and make it easier for Istanbulites to get from the European shore of their city to the Asian side or vice versa, by offering them a quicker alternative to ferry boats and the two giant motorway bridges spanning the straits. According to the DLH, the 76km trip from the suburb of Gebze on the Asian side to Halkali on the western outskirts of Istanbul’s European part takes more than three hours today. Once Marmaray is in operation, travel time will drop to one hour and 45 minutes.

“But it will not only be a suburban train,” Ms Timur said. “The tunnel will also be open for freight and international passenger trains at certain times.” Rush-hour periods in the morning and the evening are likely to be reserved for inner-city trains, she said.

Turkey has big plans for its railway network that suffered from underfunding in the past. Test runs of a high-speed train link between Istanbul and the capital of Ankara have begun, while plans to connect other cities with modern train links are in the pipeline.

In addition, work is about to start on the Turkish section of a new rail link between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Ankara has put aside roughly $300 million for work on its side of the border with Georgia, including the construction of a 76km long railway near the eastern city of Kars. When completed, the new rail link will provide an uninterrupted train connection from China to Turkey, a vision that has made Turkish politicians and media talk of an “Iron Silk Road” in the making.

Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan signed an agreement for the rail link last year. “This project will go through Kazakhstan to China and through Marmaray to London,” Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, said at the ground-breaking ceremony in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in November. He said the project would “change history” and revive “the historic Silk Road”.

Known since antiquity, the Silk Road, a bundle of trade routes between the Mediterranean and China, received its name because it was the route silk from China made its way to Europe. Its importance declined in the Middle Ages as explorers opened new sea routes for trade.

But the ancient tradition of the Silk Road can be revived and turned into a source of revenue, Turkey believes. Tourism and especially freight transport take centre stage.

“Our efforts to establish an uninterrupted rail link from Europe to Central Asia, which started in 2004, have entered their ultimate phase,” Binali Yildirim, the transport minister, said recently. “We will finish the project, which carries a big significance for Turkey strategically and economically, in three years.” A total of 30m tonnes of freight will be transported on the new link in the medium term, Turkish press reports have said.

Turkey has been trying to position itself as a rail link between Asia and Europe. Total rail freight transport between the two continents was worth $75bn a year, Suleyman Karaman, the head of Turkey’s state railway operator TCDD, said late last month. Press reports put the potential revenue Turkey could generate with the help of the international freight train connection at $7bn annually.

Russia and Iran have proposed different routes that would leave Turkey in the cold, Mr Karaman said. This is why the Marmaray project was of utmost importance for the country. “If the project is not finished [as soon as possible], we will be bypassed,” he said.

Video on Iron Silk Road
A 15 year old dream is finally coming true in Turkey as a groundbreaking ceremony for the turkish section of the Baku-Tiblis-Kars railroad was held today. Also known as the -Iron Silkroad- when complete the railway will link Europe to Asia…so that a train travelling from London can reach China without interuption. Construction is expected to last until 2011.

It was a historical day in the eastern province of Kars due to the foundation ceremony of the joint railroad project. The province hosted two neighboring presidents.

The joint railroad project or called “the Iron Silkroad” will revive the historic silkroad through railroads. The project which will joint the continents was launched by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili

A train which departs from China’s Shanghai will reach London via Turkish province of Kars when the project is complete in 2011.

The below is the map of Iron Silk Road.

Turkmenistan and Nabucco Project

Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov will discuss the project of building a natural gas pipeline bypassing Russia with the government of Turkey, a source in the Turkmen government told Reuters on Friday.

Turkmenistan, Central Asia’s largest gas producer, exports most of its gas through Russia but the European Union is lobbying for it to use an alternative route.

The West particularly wants Turkmenistan, which borders Iran, to join the U.S-backed Nabucco pipeline project, designed to help Europe diversify gas imports away from Russia.

A government official who asked not to be named said Berdymukhamedov would discuss the project during his visit to Turkey on March 24-25.

“The Transcaspian pipeline or, if you prefer, Nabucco is on the agenda,” the official said.

“But within this visit the discussion will probably be limited to an exchange of opinions.”

The official said Turkmenistan was ready to consider any viable export routes.

“We are pragmatic,” he said.

Turkmenistan sells all of its exported gas to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom , but is considering other options such as Nabucco and a pipeline to China.

Reuters