Steam in Turkey Vol. 1 • 60 mins • Colour • Stereo Sound • DVD

Ton Pruissen made two visits to Turkey, in 1978 and 1979, to film the standard gauge steam then still very active on the TCDD - Turkish State Railways.

 

Reflecting Turkey’s mountainous terrain, its railways were largely single track, with steep gradients, the mainline motive power being large as a result. In fact, for such a large system, the Turkish system was almost unique in never using the Pacific wheel arrangement, and most passenger trains were worked by locomotives that would have been considered heavy goods locomotives anywhere else - the vast majority of the locomotives featured here are four or five-coupled.

 

The TCDD did build two steam locomotives itself, one of which is seen, but most of its locomotives were German built or designed. However some areas had French and British designed engines from the period when political interests, largely before the First World War, meant Turkish railway development was important to the ‘Great Powers’.

 

After World War 11 Stanier 8Fs came from Great Britain, and American built USRA 2-8-0s and 2-8-2s, and the huge Vulcan built 2-10-0 ‘Skyliners’, as well as German ‘Kriegsloks’ (all seen here), went into service, making for often spectacular operations in spectacular scenery.

 

This volume shows operations at Mersin, Konya, Kayseri and Afyon, between Sivas and Samsun, at Erzurum and Diyarbakır and on the Black Sea Coast.

 

EXTRAS: Background information and printable map of the Turkish railway system, all in PDF format.

 

Very high quality dubbed stereo sound. The film may be played with sound, but no commentary, and may be viewed by chapter.

Vol. 2 will be found HERE