07 Rail · Demiryolu

Rail

Five regular corridors out of Mersin. The block train to Tehran has run weekly since 2013; the Middle Corridor to Central Asia has run since 2021, when the first one went east empty as a proving trip.

A container flat wagon on the terminal siding at Mersin with a KERTE box secured to it. — Deck height 1.155 m above the rail. That clearance is why a rail-borne box passes under structures a road chassis cannot.

Rail corridors
Corridor	Distance, km	Type	Transit	Frequency
Mersin – Tehran	2,680	block train	5 days	weekly
Mersin – Tashkent	4,310	Middle Corridor	12 days	fortnightly
Mersin – Almaty	4,980	Middle Corridor	14 days	fortnightly
Mersin – Baku	2,140	via Kars, BTK line	6 days	weekly
Mersin – Gaziantep	336	domestic shuttle	1 day	daily

02 The Middle Corridor

Mersin to Almaty without a Russian transit.

East on the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars line, across the Caspian by rail ferry from Alat, then the Kazakh network. Fourteen days to Almaty, twelve to Tashkent, against roughly thirty-five by sea and rail through China.

It is not cheap and we do not pretend it is. It is what you use when the cargo is worth more than the freight and the alternative routes are closed.