TURKEY: State manufacturer Türasaş received a certificate for its E5000 electric locomotive against the EU’s Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI), issued by a directorate of the transport ministry that the state-owned manufacturer answers to. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said the document opens the way to sales in the EU.
The certificate was handed to Türasaş director general Selim Koçbay by Çağlar Tabak, head of the ministry’s Directorate General for Regulation of Transport Services, at a ceremony in the ministry in Ankara with Uraloğlu present. The locomotive was tested at the factory and in the field before the certificate was issued, the minister said.
The E5000 is Turkey’s first domestically developed electric main-line locomotive, built at the company’s Eskişehir plant.
What the certificate covers
Uraloğlu described the TSI as the EU’s certification and said Turkey can now sell the locomotive both to the EU and worldwide.
Neither the ministry nor Türasaş has named which TSIs the certificate covers. The notice on the manufacturer’s website describes it as documenting the locomotive’s conformity with EU standards.
Under EU rules, a vehicle needs an EC verification certificate from a notified body established in the EU or the European Economic Area (EEA), followed by a vehicle authorisation from ERA or a national safety authority, before it can run on the EU network. A national conformity certificate against TSI requirements does not replace either step.
A second domestic vehicle programme
Türasaş was formed in 2020 by merging the three manufacturing subsidiaries of Turkish State Railways (TCDD) and builds in Sivas, Eskişehir and Sakarya. Its domestically developed high-speed train entered testing in March.
The E5000 certificate is the first TSI documentation for a Turkish-built electric locomotive.