Ankara railway station

Eastern Express, an overnight passenger train famous among tourists, has begun its first tour of the season, a 30-hour long journey from the capital Ankara to the snow-covered eastern regions, following a ceremony attended by Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu.

Turkey's Eastern Express has served more than 12,000 travelers since the service resumed in late December last year.

The Eastern Express runs 1,310 kilometers between Ankara and the eastern province of Kars, a journey that takes more than 30 hours.

A touristic version of the Eastern Express, a train service that links the capital Ankara with the eastern province of Kars, will be put in service due to the surge in demand for tickets.

A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Dec. 13, killing nine people and injuring 47 others, officials and news reports said.

An Ankara court on Aug. 3 handed down heavy sentences to nine suspects in a trial on the deadly 2015 Ankara train station attack that killed more than 100 people, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. 

Ankara on the evening of May 25 said no casualties were reported in a May 10 attack on a Turkish cargo ship in Yemen.

Turkish Transportation Minister Ahmet Arslan said on Dec. 31 that a surge in demand for seats on the Eastern Express, a train service that links Ankara with the Eastern province of Kars, could mean adding more wagons to the line.

Turkish security forces carried out a controlled explosion on Oct. 13 of a suspicious package outside the Ankara train station where a double suicide bombing killed at least 97 people three days ago, broadcaster CNN Türk reported.