A Vision Older Than the Country Itself, Turkey Opens Transcontinental Train

A railway that tunnels under the Bosphorous Strait in Turkey's capital, Istanbul, opened Tuesday on the country's 90th anniversary, making it the first transportation system to connect Europe and Asia.

The Marmaray tunnel, named for a combination of the nearby Sea of Marmara and "ray," the Turkish word for rail, runs 8.5 miles, less than one of which is underwater. The Bosphorous Strait runs through the middle of Istanbul, a city that sits partly in Europe and Asia.

Turkey has dubbed the tunnel the "project of the century," but an Ottoman sultan first had the idea in 1860, 63 years before Turkey became a sovereign nation. Another sultan had architects submit plans in 1891, but construction technology proved insufficient for the task, so the idea was tabled all the way until workers broke ground in 2005. Read more...