It might have sounded like science fiction when it was first conceived, but for the first time, Asia and Europe will be officially connected by a seventy six kilometer underwater railway tunnel. It will be the world's deepest sitting two hundred feet below the seabed. Today the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and their President Abdullah Gul gathered with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta and to inaugurate the new underground railway . This inaugural event also commemorates the 90th anniversary of modern Turkey.

The 4.5 billion dollar project was launched back in 2004, but was .first conceived by an Ottoman sultan in 1860. With the first designs for the projects submitted by French, British and American architects under Abdülhamid II in 1891. Due to technological limitations the first feasible studies into launching the project did not occur until the 1990's.

It has been named the Marmaray link, as it combines the Sea of Marmara with "ray" or rail in Turkish. The tunnel was constructed by a Turkish-Japanese consortium. There is a daily expected capacity of one and a half million people a day. Extra precautions had to be taken to make the tunnel earthquake proof as it runs parallel to a notorious Turkish fault line.

The trade benefits of this expansion to the silk road where Turkey has been increasing revenue is not the only benefits the Turkish gave gained from this undertaking as digging Marmaray uncovered forty thousand artifacts, including a cemetery of thirty Byzantine ships, which would be the largest in medieval history. This has aided Turkish archaeologists trace Istanbul's history close to three thousand years more. Not everyone was pleased by this as it caused frustrating delays for their Prime Minister who is more interested in making a financial impact by doubling the country's' gross domestic product to $2 trillion.

This has not been embraced by all as protests have swept the area claiming the grandiose urban development plans will force people from their homes and destroy green space. Istanbul is one of the world's biggest cities, with population close to 16 million people. So it is no surprise transport had been a long standing problem for the region. With two million people each day attempting to cross the Bosphorus by the two jammed bridges. The success of this project brings the day closer to reality where will be possible to travel from London to Beijing via Istanbul by train