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Turkey’s Touristic Eastern Express has wrapped up its 2025-2026 winter season carrying 10,166 passengers along the Ankara–Kars line, underscoring the growing appeal of slow, scenic rail journeys across Eastern Anatolia.
Record Winter Underscores Rising Demand for Rail Tourism
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu announced that the Touristic Eastern Express hosted 10,166 passengers during the 2025-2026 winter season, which ran between December 22, 2025, and March 1, 2026. The figure places the train firmly among Turkey’s most sought-after tourism products, particularly for domestic travelers looking for experiential, landscape-focused journeys.
Operating between the capital Ankara and the frontier city of Kars, the touristic service is distinct from the regular Eastern Express. It offers a slower schedule with extended stops in key towns and cities, allowing passengers to disembark, explore local heritage and cuisine, and then reboard to continue their overnight journey through snow-covered plateaus and mountain passes.
Authorities and tourism professionals say this winter’s passenger total aligns closely with pre-season projections of around 10,800 travelers, confirming that demand has remained robust despite higher prices and broader economic pressures. The train’s near-capacity operation on many departures has also reinforced its reputation as a journey that must be booked months in advance.
For the Ministry of Transport and TCDD Taşımacılık, the state rail operator, the performance of the Touristic Eastern Express is being read as a sign that rail can play a larger role in Turkey’s broader tourism mix, complementing air and road travel while dispersing visitor spending into smaller communities along the route.
Scenic Ankara–Kars Route Becomes a Winter Icon
The Ankara–Kars corridor has long been regarded as one of the world’s most photogenic railway routes, but the dedicated touristic service, first introduced in 2019, has amplified its profile. The 32-hour journey crosses the Anatolian heartland, tracking valleys and high plateaus, then threading into the rugged landscapes of Eastern Anatolia, often framed in deep winter by heavy snow and crystalline air.
During the 2025-2026 season, the train continued to follow its signature pattern of extended stopovers, including Erzincan and Erzurum in the eastbound direction and İliç, Divriği and Sivas on the return. These pauses, ranging from around two and a half to four hours, have proved central to its appeal, turning what might be a simple point-to-point trip into a multi-stop itinerary blending rail travel with local discovery.
In towns such as Erzincan and Erzurum, local authorities and businesses have responded by curating walking tours, regional food tastings and handicraft markets to welcome the influx of winter rail tourists. For many villages and small urban centers along the tracks, the arrival of the Touristic Eastern Express has become a calendar highlight and a reliable injection of off-season revenue.
Passengers, many of them young travelers, photographers and outdoor enthusiasts, are drawn by the chance to watch the landscape change slowly from the warmth of a sleeper cabin, then step directly into historic bazaars, stone bridges and Ottoman-era streets as the train pauses along the way.
Capacity, Pricing and the Challenge of Managing Popularity
The Touristic Eastern Express runs with a limited number of sleeper cars, giving it an approximate capacity of 160 passengers per departure. For the 2025-2026 winter, the timetable included 60 round-trip services on the Ankara–Kars line, with Ankara departures scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and return services from Kars operating on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
This tight capacity has been both a strength and a challenge. On the one hand, the intimate scale helps preserve the sense of exclusivity and quiet that many travelers seek from a long-distance train. On the other, it has led to intense pressure on ticket availability, with many departures reported sold out shortly after sales opened, particularly in the high-demand period between mid-January and late February.
Pricing has been another talking point. According to the official fare tables, sleeper cabin prices for the 2025-2026 season ranged between 14,000 and 17,000 lira per cabin one way, depending on date and demand period. Compared with earlier seasons, when a similar journey was available for a fraction of that cost, the increases have sparked debate among travelers but do not appear to have dampened occupancy rates.
Industry observers note that the combination of limited capacity, a short seasonal window and heightened social media visibility has effectively turned the Touristic Eastern Express into a once-per-season “event train.” For many would-be passengers, securing a berth has become part of the adventure, encouraging earlier planning and, in some cases, bookings through package-tour operators rather than independent ticket purchases.
Economic and Cultural Impact Along the Route
Beyond ticket revenue, officials emphasize the broader economic effect of the train’s success. With passengers staying overnight in Ankara and Kars and spending heavily during station stopovers, the Touristic Eastern Express is seen as a catalyst for spreading tourism income beyond already popular destinations such as Istanbul, Cappadocia or Antalya.
In Kars, hotels, guesthouses and boutique properties reported strong winter occupancy driven in part by train arrivals, particularly on days when inbound and outbound services overlapped. Restaurants specializing in local dishes such as goose confit and regional cheeses, as well as shops selling carpets and traditional crafts, also benefited from the additional seasonal traffic.
Smaller communities like Divriği and İliç, which rarely feature on conventional tour itineraries, have used the regular arrival of the train to showcase UNESCO-listed heritage, historic mosques, citadels and stone bridges. Local guides and cooperative-run visitor centers have been quick to organize short excursions timed to the train’s stopovers.
Cultural officials say the train has helped reposition rail travel itself as part of Turkey’s tourism identity. Rather than being simply a means of getting from one city to another, the journey has become a curated experience in its own right, one that celebrates winter, rural life and the slower rhythms of cross-country travel.
Strategic Role in Turkey’s Expanding Tourism Rail Network
The performance of the Touristic Eastern Express comes as Turkey experiments with a wider portfolio of themed and regional trains designed for tourism. In addition to the Ankara–Kars route, services such as the Karaelmas Express in the Western Black Sea region and the Diyarbakır Express in the southeast are being developed or relaunched with an eye toward similar experiential journeys.
Officials at the Ministry of Transport have indicated that data from the 2025-2026 Touristic Eastern Express season, including occupancy rates, spending patterns and feedback gathered from passengers and local stakeholders, will help shape future offerings. The goal is to build a network of seasonal trains that can draw visitors to different corners of the country throughout the year, balancing flows and easing pressure on established hotspots.
Rail advocates argue that this strategy also aligns with environmental and infrastructural priorities. By encouraging longer stays and multi-stop itineraries built around rail, Turkey can reduce reliance on short-haul domestic flights and long-distance bus journeys, while making better use of existing rail corridors that pass through areas of high scenic and cultural value.
With more than ten thousand passengers now having completed the Touristic Eastern Express journey in a single winter, the Ankara–Kars line appears firmly established as the flagship of this emerging tourism rail network, setting a benchmark in both demand and destination development for other routes to follow.