Italian Rail Subsidiary to Report on Ankara Airport Rail Link

The Engineering Consultancy subsidiary of the Italian state-owned Railway Group, Italferr has been given the contract to carry out feasibility studies into a proposed rail link between Ankara and Esenboga International Airport.

The proposed link will be a 27 km line with 8 intermediate stations linking Turkey’s capital with its fifth busiest airport. Esenboga International Airport saw 7.6 million domestic and 9.2 million international passengers pass through in 2012.

The €1.5m agreement signed on 6th February between Turkey’s Ministry of Transport and Italferr calls for a year long study into the feasibility of the development, and preliminary design work.

Italferr, which has previously provided consultancy services and carried out work on two high speed train maintenance depots said the project involved “one of the city’s most important axes for urban development”. The work included civil works (buildings, basic plants, flooring, external layouts, inspection pits, washing platforms), lines and railway tracks (plant layout and connection to existing lines), electric traction plants, safety, signalling and telecommunications.

Italferr’s website says it holds a constant commitment to care for the environment, to which end it has developed a method for mitigating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions generated by infrastructural design and realisation.