Haydarpaşa railway station

Haydarpaşa station (Turkish: Haydarpaşa Garı) is a railway station in Istanbul, that was, until 2012 the main city terminal for trains travelling to and from the Anatolian side of Turkey. It used to be Turkey's busiest railway station. (Its counterpart on the European side of the city was Sirkeci station which served train services to and from the Thracian side of the country.) The station building still houses the headquarters for District 1 of the State Railways but since a fire in 2010 the station has not been in use and its future remains uncertain.

Haydarpaşa stands on an embankment over the Bosphorus just south of the Port of Haydarpaşa (one of the main container terminals in Turkey) and is slightly north of busy Kadıköy. Until the rail service was suspended, ferry services connected it to Eminönü, Karaköy and Kadıköy.

The closure of the station has been very controversial and a group known as the Haydarpaşa Solidarity Group (Turkish: Haydarpaşa Dayanışması) has staged regular protest sit-ins in front of it amid fears that the station and port would be sold; a plan involving seven skyscrapers provoked especially strong adverse reaction. In December 2015, the reintegration of Haydarpaşa station into the Marmaray network was theoretically approved along with the restoration and rehabilitation of the station building and platforms. As of 2025, it is planned to be used as both a terminal station and museum.

In 1871 Sultan Abdülaziz ordered the first railway line to be built from Haydarpaşa in Istanbul to İzmit. Haydarpaşa station opened in 1872, by which time the railway extended as far as Gebze. In 1888 the Anatolian Railway (Chemins de fer Ottomans d'Anatolie, CFOA) took over the line and the station. Since the station was built right beside the Bosphorus, freight trains could unload at Haydarpaşa and the freight could be transferred straight to ships. Haydarpaşa station saw its first regular passenger service - daily train from Haydarpaşa to İzmit - in 1890. In 1892 the CFOA laid a line to Ankara and shortly afterwards a daily train started to run between the two cities.

Haydarpaşa was chosen as the northern terminus for the Baghdad Railway and the Hejaz Railway in 1904, and, with rail traffic increasing, a larger building was required. The Anatolian Railway hired two German architects, Otto Ritter and Helmut Conu, to build the new building. They chose a Neo-classical design and construction started in 1906. Its foundation is based on 1100 wooden piles, each 21 metres (69 ft) long, driven into the soft shore by a steam hammer. German and Italian stonemasons crafted the decoration of the exterior. The work was completed on land reclaimed from the sea on 19 August 1909 and the new terminal was inaugurated on 4 November 1909 for the birthday of Mehmed V. While the work was in progress the community of German engineers and craftsmen established a small German neighbourhood with its own school in the Yeldeğirmeni quarter of Kadıköy.

World War I broke out in 1914 and the Ottoman Empire sided with the Central Powers against the Allied Powers. When the Ottomans lost İstanbul was taken over by the British Empire and Haydarpaşa fell under British military control during the occupation.

In 1917 the architect Vedat Tek designed the pretty terminal decorated with Kütahya tiles where ferries used to deposit would-be train passengers in front of the station.

The Turkish Independence War ended on 29 October 1923 with the British withdrawal from Istanbul and the formation of the Republic of Turkey. Haydarpaşa terminal was still under CFOA control but in 1927 the newly formed Turkish State Railways (TCDD) took over the CFOA and the terminal as part of the process of nationalising all the Turkish railways. In 1927 the CIWL started a premier train service, the all-sleeper Anatolian Express, that travelled daily between Haydarpaşa and Ankara. In 1938 the Eastern Express started running from Haydarpaşa to the eastern Turkish city of Kars, a distance of 1,994 km (1,239 mi). The famous Taurus Express from Haydarpaşa to Baghdad, a distance of 2,566 km (1,594 mi), entered service in 1940. In 1965 the Trans-Asia Express began running from Haydarpaşa to Tehran, a distance of 3,059 km (1,901 mi). In 1969 the tracks from Haydarpaşa to Gebze were electrified with 25 kV AC catenary for the Haydarpaşa-Gebze commuter line.