Turkey launches high-speed Istanbul-Ankara rail link Friday July 25,2014

Turkey has inaugurated a high-speed rail link between Istanbul and Ankara on Friday July 25,2014, slashing by half the seven-hour journey time between the two cities.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan travelled aboard the first train in the service from Ankara, stopping at a town en route to make a campaign speech.

The tracks allow trains to reach speeds of up to 250 km (155 miles) per hour.

The new service will terminate in the Istanbul suburb of Pendik, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus

The train line stretches 533 kilometres and a trip using the service takes three hours and 30 minutes. Some 7.5 million passengers are expected to use the high speed link every year.

The project has been repeatedly delayed and beset by accidents but Erdogan was Friday travelling on the first train from Ankara to Istanbul with the line open to the general public from Saturday July 26,2014

The opening comes ahead of presidential elections on August 10,2014 that are expected to see Erdogan sweep to victory as head of state, after a campaign in which he has constantly boasted of his efforts to improve transportation in Turkey

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) has dominated politics for over a decade, presents himself as the man leading Turkey’s transformation into a modern country with a European standard of living and infrastructure.

In 2013  Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated the Marmaray tunnel, which for the first time connects Istanbul’s two sides — where Europe and Asia meet — with a metro link deep beneath the waters of the Bosphorus. He is also a driving force behind plans for a third bridge over the Bosphorus and a huge new third airport for Istanbul.