A contractual arrangement between the tobacco exporters Nemlizadeler and Nafia Nezareti had the objective, to connect the Çarşamba and Bafra ports to the port of Samsun with a scheduled start date of 6 December 1923.

Nemlizadeler founded therefore the Samsun Coastal Railways Turkish Incorporated Company (Turkish: Samsun Sahil Demiryolları Türk Anonim Şirketi).

[2] In 1924 the Nemlizadeler family obtained a 75-year concession to build a 750mm gauge railway line from Alacam through Bafra, Samsun, Çarşamba to Terme.

The groundbreaking ceremony was performed by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk with a silver pick and shovel on 16.

[4] A total of four coal-fired steam locomotives built from 1924 onwards by Krauss and Henschel in Germany were used on the railway line:[5] Narrow gauge railways in Turkey