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You can now get an underwater train from Europe to Asia

The tunnel in Istanbul was first suggested by an Ottoman sultan in 1860.

tunnel final The high-speed line has cut the travel time between Istanbul and Ankara. Youtube / AFP Youtube / AFP / AFP

TURKEY TODAY INAUGURATES the first high-speed train link between its main cities of Ankara and Istanbul, connecting Europe and Asia with a tunnel deep underground beneath the waters of the Bosphorus.

After years of constant delays that has seen the project become a standing joke among Turks, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to glide into Istanbul aboard the first train this evening.

As part of the route, a 13.6 km long tunnel linking Istanbul’s European and Asian sides was built which includes an immersed tube tunnel that officials say is the world’s deepest at 60m below the seabed.

The idea was first floated by Ottoman sultan Abdoul Medjid in 1860 but technical equipment at the time was not good enough to take the project further.

However the desire to build an undersea tunnel grew stronger in the 1980s and studies also showed that such a tunnel would be feasible and cost-effective.

Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, revived the plan in 2004 as one of his mega projects for the bustling city of 16 million people — which also include a third airport, a third bridge across the Bosphorus and a canal parallel to the international waterway to ease traffic.

The line will not terminate in the centre of Istanbul, but on the Asian side of the Bosphorus in the suburb of Pendik, some two hours from the centre in the city’s often heavy traffic.

The new high-speed line has cut the travel time between the two cities to 3.5 hours.

tunnel 6 Turkish designers claim the underwater tunnel is the deepest of its kind in the world. Youtube / AFP Youtube / AFP / AFP

Eventually the Turkish government also wants the terminus to be on the European side of Istanbul, with trains travelling through the Marmaray tunnel.

Trains are to run at 250 km/h along the 511 km line.

But the project has been hit by repeated postponements of the opening date and mishaps — including when one of the new trains crashed into a maintenance vehicle this month.

There are safety concerns too: train accidents are frequent on Turkey’s network and in 2004 dozens of people were killed when a newly-inaugurated high-speed train derailed in the northwest.

tunnel 3 The tunnel will now mean a much shorter direct train line between London and Peking. Youtube / AFP Youtube / AFP / AFP

Yet, with an intense if belated advertising campaign — TV adverts show smiling children waving at the train as it surges through the fields — the government is now pulling out all the stops to make it a success.

The opening comes ahead of presidential elections on 10 August that are expected to see Erdogan sweep to victory as head of state, after a campaign in which he has constantly boasted of his efforts to improve transportation in Turkey.

AFP / YouTube

© – AFP 2014 with additional reporting from Rónán Duffy

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    Mute Ted Carroll
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    Jul 25th 2014, 12:37 PM

    This is great, that’s going to shave vital minutes off my regular train journeys from London to Peking.

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    Mute winding_down
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    Jul 25th 2014, 12:52 PM

    Are we calling it Peking now, just to irritate the Chinese? We stopped calling it that in Ireland decades ago!

    Beijing (“Northern Capital”) is a much more cosmopolitan name ;-)

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    Mute Ted Carroll
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    Jul 25th 2014, 2:08 PM

    I had a computer game years ago called Civilisation and I’m pretty sure it was Peking in that so I’m not for changing!

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    Mute patrick
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    Jul 25th 2014, 3:25 PM

    a “direct” train, apparently…

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    Mute Rónan Murray
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    Jul 25th 2014, 4:53 PM

    Pékin is French for Beijing

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    Mute winding_down
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    Jul 25th 2014, 6:15 PM

    @Ronán: It is, and it’s because the first Europeans to visit China were French, and they mistakenly took up the pronunciation as “Péking”. But we don’t say “Pah-Rí” in Ireland, for Paris, so why should we be saying Peking instead of Beijing?

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    Mute Brendan McGill
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    Jul 25th 2014, 3:24 PM

    There should be a feckin Bridge or tunnel to the UK from Ireland.

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    Mute IrishGravyTrain
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    Jul 25th 2014, 12:17 PM

    Hope they are lucky with the Earthquakes.

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    Mute Gabbi Johnson
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    Jul 25th 2014, 12:19 PM

    Who would want to get a train from London to Peking? You can get Peking Duck in London.

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    Mute thefunnyman
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    Jul 25th 2014, 12:42 PM

    yea but the ducks can now get train to london instead of flying

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    Mute Gabbi Johnson
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    Jul 25th 2014, 1:17 PM

    AAAAh.

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    Mute Aus Tereo
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    Jul 25th 2014, 3:46 PM

    The aul London – Peking commute is an awful bitch

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    Mute Anna_Montana
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    Jul 25th 2014, 12:38 PM

    Equal parts cool & terrifying.

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    Mute Vincent Naughton
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    Jul 25th 2014, 3:47 PM

    “You can now get an underwater train from Europe to Asia”

    Most. Overhyped. Article title. Ever.

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    Mute Bevin Reilly
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    Jul 25th 2014, 9:23 PM

    The picture on the front of the article is ever so slightly misleading too.

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    Mute PerkyBeans
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    Jul 25th 2014, 2:26 PM

    No you can’t. You can get a train from Turkey to turkey.

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    Mute Inntalitarian
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    Aug 24th 2014, 7:18 PM

    Whilst both cities are in Turkey, they are technically in different countries.

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    Mute P Fallon
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    Jul 25th 2014, 2:01 PM

    great, more immigrants.

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    Mute Bevin Reilly
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    Jul 25th 2014, 9:36 PM

    You clearly saw the headline and rushed straight to the comments section without so much as a glance at the first paragraph to relieve yourself of that utter sh!te. It’s a tunnel running from Ankara to Istanbul, which, if you didn’t know are both in Turkey.

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    Mute Tony Le Blanc
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    Jul 25th 2014, 1:45 PM

    FINALLY!!

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    Mute Brianog2
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    Jul 25th 2014, 5:11 PM

    Fair play to Abdoul for “floating “the idea

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