ISTANBUL: When Senay Kartal worked at Turkiye’s most beautiful railway station, her days were filled with the rumble of locomotives and the bustle of passengers at Haydarpasa on the banks of the Bosphorus.
But gone are the days when passengers from Anatolia would walk its marble halls, suitcases in hand, marvelling at the grandiose landmark on Istanbul’s Asian waterfront.
Today the tracks lie silent at what was Turkiye’s busiest station, the great eastern hub of the Berlin to Baghdad railway.
Once immortalized in old Turkish films and portrayed in numerous novels, the station has been taken over by the Turkish culture ministry which wants to transform it into an art center.
Yet for the 61-year-old retiree, who still hears the echo of whistles and the cries of simit sellers hawking their sesame-coated bread rings, the iconic building should remain a railway station.
