Ankara railway station

The original builder, the Chemins de Fer Ottomans d'Anatolie (CFOA), was engaged in shipping war materials to the fronts in Palestine and Mesopotamia during World War I. Therefore, between 1914 and 1918 the Ankara station had no passenger service and very little freight service. The CFOA fell under British military control after the war, but the Turkish Nationalists captured Ankara and parts of the CFOA. During the Turkish Independence War, CFOA transported troops from Ankara, as the newly named capital of Turkey, to the front near Eskişehir.[1]

View of 19 May Square and the Ankara Railway Station taken in the 1940s

After the Turkish independence war ended, the passenger train services from Istanbul to Ankara resumed. The CFOA, now under Turkish control, finally opened the line to Kayseri and Ankara was no longer the terminus. CFOA was then acquired by the Turkish State Railways (TCDD) on June 1, 1927, and Ankara station was placed under TCDD control.[2] In 1927 the Anatolian Express was inaugurated as a premier overnight train from Istanbul to Ankara operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL).[3] The current Art deco building was built in 1937 by Turkish architect Şekip Akalın. As TCDD completed rail lines to other cities, new train services from Ankara such as the 9th of September Express (1939) to Izmir, the Eastern Express (1939) to Kars, and the Southern Express (1944) to Diyarbakır and Kurtalan made Ankara station one of the busiest stations in Turkey. In 1972, the station, along with the track between Sincan and Kayaş, were electrified with 25 kV AC catenary for the Ankara Suburban Railway. In 1993 the Istanbul-Ankara line was fully electrified. In the 1990s TCDD opened a steam museum next to the station. In 2009 a high-speed train service operated from Ankara to Eskişehir.

The 2015 Ankara bombings occurred on 10 October 2015 at 10:04 local time (EEST) in Ankara. Two bombs were detonated outside the entrance of the Ankara Central railway station, killing more than 105 and injuring more than 400 people.[4][5] The attack is the deadliest of its kind in Turkey's modern history.[6]

A TCDD HT65000 at the Ankara Central Station 2009 to 2016