Türkiye is pursuing a truly vast track electrification program to enable a high-speed rail network. But I’ll predict that hydrail (fuel cell rail traction), which the US, Taiwan, Japan and China have demonstrated and/or deployed, will begin to supplant external power considerably before Türkiye’s network is completed.

Türkiye’s electrification is logical now because hydrail will come last to the highest powered rail applications–for the same scale reasons the Wright Brothers didn’t start with a DC3-sized plane.

But if a technology paradigm shift to onboard electric is coming (avoiding US$ 4- to 6-million per Km in construction), then engineering economics favors developing hydrail with all deliberate speed so as to minimize both the duration of the external power construction period and to avoid short amortization lives of the last lines to be electrified before wireless fuel cell high speed rail arrives.

As the Hürriyet article says, Türkiye is ideally suited to help lead the hydrail transition and has much to gain from doing so.

( see also: http://www.hydrail.org/summary6.php )