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The website
of the Turkish State Railways (Türkiye
Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryollari,
TCDD) used
to be difficult, even impossible
to use, but I'm happy to report
that as of April 2010 a few important
parts of it are much
easier to use.
The initial departure and final arrival information for
main-line trains is now on one
HTML page.
The page is only in Turkish (so far;
the website's English section still
has the old clunky IE-only database
interface). Here's what you need to
know in order to read it:
YÜKSEK HIZLI TREN =
High-speed train
HAREKET SAATLERİ =
Departure/arrival times
K: = Kalkış (Departure;
times are 24-hour clock)
V: = Varış (Arrival)
MESAFE = Distance
BU TRENLERDEKİ VAGON TİPİ =
Types of cars [services] on this train
Pulman =
Pullman car (seats in rows, as on a
plane)
Örtülü
Kuşet = Couchettes with
blanket
& pillow
Yemekli = Dining
car
Yataklı =
Sleeping car
Remember, schedules are by station,
not by city. Therefore, trains to Istanbul's
Asian station at Haydarpaşa bear the
name Haydarpaşa,
not Istanbul; trains for Izmir's
Basmane station are marked Basmane,
not Izmir.
Departure and arrival information
for stations enroute is still
only available through the clunky,
buggy old database reservations system,
which can only be accessed by use of
Internet Explorer 5.0+ on
computers using Microsoft Windows.
No other browsers or computers will
work.
(Just imagine how witless that
is.)
For those traveling to or from rail
destinations outside of Turkey, schedules
and fares for trains to foreign destinations have
maintained HTML simplicity:
Trains
to/from Europe (Greece,
Bulgaria, Romania)
Trains
to/from the Middle East (Iran,
Syria, Iraq)
Iyi yolculuklar! (Have
a good trip!)
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