Today in History – 3 September

A rail link between north and south

Following the completion of the Kayseri-Ulukışla line of September 3, 1933, the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions were connected by railway.

Regarding the railway connection as one of the most important national objectives of the country, the administrators of the Republic allocated a significant portion of their efforts and financial resources to the construction of railways. Local sources comprised, to a large extent, the funding of the railways.

The response Prime Minister İsmet İnönü gave to criticisms on providing too large a budget for the construction of railways on August 30, 1930 at the opening of the Ankara-Sivas line was an important indication of the weight the government attached to railways:

The railway policy is, above all, a policy of construction. When they asked me what the real policy would be in constructing railways, I told them, a hand span more of railways… Being deprived of roads and transportation has been a deep-rotted problem of this nation for centuries and a need that the Grand National Assembly has been preoccupied with since its earliest days. For the national state, the need for railways is an issue of national unity, national defense, and national politics; it leads to the preservation of a national independence achieved after centuries of hard work.