TCDD Taşımacılık trains

TCDD Taşımacılık runs almost all of Turkey's passenger trains and sells its own tickets, and it is not the TCDD that owns the track.

The company and what it replaced

TCDD Taşımacılık A.Ş. is Turkey's state passenger and freight train company, owned outright by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. It was split off from Turkish State Railways, TCDD, on 14 June 2016 and began operating on 1 January 2017, the day after TCDD handed over train operations. TCDD kept the track, the stations, the ports and the network planning, and its own site sells nothing itself: the Buy online ticket button on tcdd.gov.tr simply hands you to the operator's ebilet shop. That split is the single most useful thing to know before you book, because tcdd.gov.tr and tcddtasimacilik.gov.tr are different organisations and only the second one runs trains. TCDD Taşımacılık works 59 of Turkey's 81 provinces.

Services and the names on a departure board

The operator divides its passenger business into five families, and the family name decides where you book and whether a pass covers you.

A sixth label sits outside that list. Turistik trains are excursion products sold on their own terms: the Turistik Doğu Ekspresi, the Turistik Tatvan and Diyarbakır trains, the Tuz Ekspresi to Çankırı and a Turistik Erzurum to Kars regional. The first of those is a different train from the ordinary Doğu Ekspresi despite the near identical name, and it is the excluded train most likely to cost a pass holder money.

Marmaray, Başkentray and the city networks

Marmaray is this company's Istanbul commuter railway, 75.7 km from Halkalı to Gebze in 108 minutes through the Bosphorus tunnel, with a shorter Ataköy to Pendik pattern covering 42.83 km in 63 minutes. Başkentray does the same job in Ankara, 24 stations from Sincan to Kayaş in 49 minutes, calling at Ankara Gar on the way.

Both are city transport rather than railway journeys. You tap through the gates with the local card, an Istanbulkart or an Ankarakart, rather than a ticket from the booking site, and no Interrail or Eurail pass covers Marmaray. Treat them as metro lines that the national operator happens to run.

Buying a ticket from TCDD Taşımacılık

Domestic tickets come from ebilet.tcddtasimacilik.gov.tr, or from the same account inside the company's app on the App Store and Google Play. The shop has five tabs: domestic tickets, your existing bookings, car hire, international tickets and the Turistik trains. Switch the TR control at the top right to EN for English. On the international side, tick the box at the passenger details step saying you are not a Turkish citizen, which makes the form ask for a passport number instead of a Turkish national ID.

The corporate site is a different animal. Checked on 30 August 2026, every English URL on tcddtasimacilik.gov.tr that we could find showed the site's page not found screen, including the /en/ root and the Interrail page its own footer links to. Use the Turkish pages for timetables and service news, and do the booking on ebilet.

The trains into Europe and Iran

One scheduled train links Turkey with the rest of Europe, and TCDD Taşımacılık runs the Turkish end of it. The İstanbul Sofya Ekspresi leaves Halkalı at 20:00 and reaches Sofia at 11:48 on the operator's April 2026 timetable, then comes back out of Sofia at 18:50 for a 09:56 arrival, every day of the year, calling at Çerkezköy, Edirne, Kapıkule, Svilengrad, Dimitrovgrad and Plovdiv. There are sleeping cars and couchettes, no seated carriages, and no restaurant car at all. The through couchette car to Bucharest ran from 11 June to 10 October in 2026 southbound, and from 13 June to 12 October coming back.

The operator publishes these fares in euros, and they were on its tariff when we checked on 30 August 2026. Halkalı to Sofia one way costs 36.40 EUR a head in a four berth couchette, 41.40 EUR a head in a two berth sleeper, and 74.60 EUR for a single berth compartment. The through car to Bucharest is 75.70 EUR a head.

Going the other way, from Sofia, only half the sleeper berths and two four berth couchette compartments load on the Turkish system. The Turkish and Bulgarian reservation systems are not linked and the Bulgarian railway holds the rest back for its own counters, so an empty result on ebilet is not proof the train is full.

An international ticket can be changed once, free of charge, up to 24 hours before departure. A refund in the same window costs 10 per cent of the fare towards Europe and 20 per cent towards the Middle East. You can instead convert it to an open ticket valid 90 days, but an open ticket cannot be refunded afterwards. Pets are not carried on these trains at all, and a bicycle rides free only if you have booked the whole compartment.

The company also sells east. The Tehran to Van train, worked by Iranian Railways, leaves Tehran on Wednesdays and Sundays at 12:35 to arrive at 11:00, and on the operator's published times returns from Van on Mondays and Thursdays at 21:00 to arrive at 18:00, at 26.20 EUR a head in a four berth couchette.

Checked on 30 August 2026, the company's international page carries an undated notice that customs and passport control for the İstanbul Sofya Ekspresi are being handled at Edirne Gar while high speed works are under way.

Pass holders on this operator's trains

A pass covers this operator's Bölgesel, Anahat, YHT and EXP trains, and the INT night trains it works with carriers outside Turkey, on Interrail's railway companies table as it stood on 28 August 2026. It does not cover the Turistik Doğu Ekspresi or Marmaray. What the coverage table does not tell you is that reservations on this operator cannot be bought through Interrail's self-service system at all. Interrail treats them as compulsory on Anahat and YHT and on most Bölgesel services, and says they have to be made at a ticket desk inside Turkey.

The company also sells paper Interrail passes over the counter at seven ticket offices, among them Sirkeci and Halkalı in Istanbul, and its Turkish international trains page spells out the rules that catch people. A One Country Pass is never sold for the country you live in, and no pass covers the extras, among them an upgrade to first class, the high speed supplement, a sleeper or couchette berth, and any compulsory seat reservation.

Reaching the company

The call centre is 444 82 33 from inside Turkey. There is also a WhatsApp line on +90 507 321 82 33 and a solution centre open around the clock on the ebilet site. Head office is at Hacı Bayram Mahallesi, Hipodrom Caddesi No 3/C, Altındağ, Ankara, on +90 312 309 05 15.