Moto Train from Lake Van?
 

In 2022 I'm planning to ride from Germany to Lake Van (Turkey) and back. I spoke with a guy a few days ago who assured me that there is a train between Lake Van and Klagenfurt Austria which carries motos. I found this kind of hard to believe, since Lake Van seems a bit remote for this kind of service, but this guy generally knows what he's talking about. If this train existed it would be great, because I could spend more time on the interesting bits of the journey on the way down and then train back.

Anyway, after a bit of poking around online, I haven't found anything at all about such a train...all I've found is a train between Villach Austria and Edirne Turkey, which is pretty much on the opposite end of the country as Lake Van. I suspect that my source just got mixed up, but wanted to double-check with the experts here!

So, has anyone ever heard of this mysterious moto-carrying train to Lake Van?

There is an auto train operating during the summer months (late April - first week of November) between Austria and Turkey - it is called the Optima Express. Auto trains "usually" take motorcycles, but the first thing you need to do is confirm this, and also determine if there is a lower price for a moto than the price for a car.

I have no knowledge of this train, I found the link above by using Google search after reading your post. It operates from Villach Austria (not Klagenfurt) to Edirne Turkey (not Istanbul). Edirne is the first major city inside Turkey once you cross from Greece into Turkey - it's way up in the northwest corner of the European side of Turkey, very close to the Greek border.

I suspect that the bulk of the passengers are Turks who work in Austria or Germany and return home for holidays in the summer.

Usually these type of auto trains are very expensive for a person travelling alone. They start to make economic sense when you have 1 car and 4 or 6 people who occupy a 4 or 6 bed sleeper room.

Michael

They probably confused Edirne with Erzurum, which is a big rail hub and sort of close to Lake Van.

Yeah, that's probably it...anyway, once I get as far as Edirne I don't think I'd bother to take a train to Austria. Oh well, I was pretty sure that it was too good to be true!

Seat61 is usually a good reference for train info in Europe.

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