Turkey’s first high-speed rail line began operating this year and will eventually link Istanbul to the capital Ankara.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the 155-mile stretch from Ankara to Eskisehir in March after six years of work.
Trains travel at 155mph and in the coming years will have a growing network to operate on.
The journey time between Istanbul and Ankara (354 miles) will be halved to about three hours with the aim of boosting rail’s share of the market from 10% to 80%.
The Marmaray tunnel under the Bosphorus will be completed in 2012 and will establish the first ever railway connection between Europe and Anatolia.
Spanish train constructor CAF is building 12 high-speed passenger trains for Turkey and more will be built later in Turkey as a result of a Turkey-Korea deal.
"We have to build a high-speed rail network across the country in 10 years and we will do it," said Erol Inan, deputy director-general of Turkish Railways.
Turkish Railways also has plans to link Ankara to Izmir on the Aegean coast and open a railway corridor to the Mediterranean at Antalya.
Other countries are also going fast for high-speed rail.
China is planning to build 35 new high-speed rail lines by 2012, spanning 8,000 miles and covering 800 new stations, with trains running at speeds of up to 215mph.
At least five routes will operate trains at 215mph, including three north-south routes, Beijing-Shanghai; Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Harbin and two east-west routes, Xuzhou-Lanzhou and Shanghai-Kunming.
The high-speed rail construction plan will be funded by the government's £350billion stimulus package.