As pretty much the whole of the UK public transport industry is now in "Rabbit in the Headlights" torpor, it is good to look further afield for positives. So fbb, weirdly, will take you to Turkey.
Now fbb's intimate knowledge of the Turkish language is about nil, so this virtual trip has been an intellectual and linguistic challenge.
Offering confusing assistance with the above, "Gar" is Google-translated as "station" or even "station house" yet it is the only "station" in Gaziantep that claims that descriptor. Maybe it should be taken as meaning "terminus" or simply "central" as it is the main station of that town.
"Ray" is Turkish for "Rail", so we may assume that Gazi-Ray is a concatenation for the railway and part of Gaziantep.
Follow the panhandle of Cyprus as a pointer and there you are!
Gaziantep, previously and still informally called Aintab or Antep, is a major city and capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Mediterranean Region, approximately 60 miles north of Aleppo, Syria.
As of the 31/12/2021 last estimation, the Metropolitan Province was home to 2,130,432 inhabitants, of whom 1,775,904 lived in the metropolitan area made of two (out of three) urban districts of Şahinbey and Şehitkamil, as Oğuzeli is not conurbated. It is the sixth-most populous city in Turkey.
The town has some ancient history, with a castle ...
... and plenty of other historic stuff.
There is also plenty of modernity as well.
It has a more traditional railway station ...
... where orange and white buses seem to congregate.
The station was built in 1953, when the Turkish State Railways built a branch line from Narlı to Gaziantep. The station building was completed in 1959 and the line was continued to Karkamış, where it connected to the former Baghdad Railway. The station became a major hub in the southeast, with trains to Baghdad, Adana, Aleppo and Malatya.
Services to Aleppo and Baghdad have since ended.
...doesn't mention Gaziantep in his list of services ...
... or show a link on his "Interactive Map".
So, as of 1800 last evening, fbb was struggling to find ANY "proper" trains to Gaziantep!
If a brilliant flash of ferroequinological revelation occurs before bed time, fbb will add a P.S.
But don't hold your breath. It may be hepsi çevrimiçi or alternatively hepsi online, but if it is, it is well hidden and in Turkish!
But one train service does feature ...
... and that is he already spotted Gaziray. Its part of the central station is very different from the 1953 building ...
... and there is that distinctive weirdness at the far and.
This recently opened suburban line is, effectively a new-build but on the track bed of a former single line.
And that new station must have looked even more weird as it was built!
The other challenge which fbb had faced in exploring this brand new suburban line is that most of the published maps are not orientated conventionally, The map on the dark blue background needs rotation about 90 degrees. The blue section of line (which opened first) ...
... runs general east bound; whereas the rest of the route ...
... zooms off to the north.
The other challenge which fbb has faced is that the ever-useful Streetview has not yet been updated to show the completed railway.
And finally; whilst there are plenty of videos of the new line on You Tube, they are all produced in Turkish.
But this one shown below can be coped with. There is plenty of powerful nationalistic music interspersed with some fairly obviously enthusiastic commentary but with lots of shots of the opening events, or bits of track further enhanced with some clever computer graphics.
Four minutes of celebration are of interest even if you cannot understand a word of it!
This afternoon at 1345 c/o Axminster Hospital, fbb will receive the first of a series of monthly injections to stabilise his Age Onset Macular Degeneration. It is not clear what the immediate effect of this eyeball stabbing might be. It involves both eye drops to dilate the pupil and some more gunk as an ocular anaesthetic.
It may be necessary to post tomorrow's blog later in the morning.
Next Gazireay blog : Tuesday 15th Nopvember
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