New North South Israeli Main Line under Construction

[daveklepper]

The Trains  & Tram society of Israel.

Dear all, 

     On the evening news-tonight- they had a 10 min. report on the new TRAIN line that is been built and will run -parallel to Kvish #6 .

It is about 13 kms East of the current - and very busy & overloaded - train line . 

The bulldozers are working clearing out the space for the 2 sets of tracks.

2... This new line [probably will be called something East] will have 10 station including El-Ad, and Lod North.  It will be linked to the old N-S line by at least two separate connecting tracks.

It will be ready in 2026.  The cost is expected to be about 8 billion shkls.

    3... This new line is primarily been designed to bypass the Tel Aviv complex and let soldiers, passengers and tourists travel quickly from North to South [and vice-versa] without the usual Tel Aviv delays. Every Thursday and Sunday hundreds of soldiers need to travel from their bases in the Negev to the their homes in the North, and then on Sunday - return.

4... In this area [North and South ] are the Foothills of the Shomron mountains, and a few moshavim or kibbutzim.  Their agricultural land  is been used to make the 12 meter wide under-track foundations. There are also about 5 streams that in winter flow, - East to West- and they will need bridges.

5... Many years ago- I wrote to the Ministry of Transport as they were planning the privatized Kvish #6 {Toll road} mega project ..and asked them to leave a 12 metre wide section up the whole of Kvish 6 -for the future train. [in the middle space between the two highways.]...I got an answer , but they essentially said  - "NO"  cause they didn't need a train this far EAST.

...apparently , now they do.

6... The first completed section will [probably ] be from Rishon LeTzion up-to Haifa ...and then late on add-ons till the Negev center, and up past Acco.

7... During WW1 -as the Ottoman forces decided in 1915 to attack and neutralize the Suez Canal they concentrated their small army near Gaza- and under Colonal Kress von Kressenstein , but & and  he essentially failed in his three missions into the Sinai desert. The main reason was this his Turkish/Austrian and German soldiers had to walk from the North Palestine into the Sinai desert.....such a soldier cannot fight .......after this [short] walk.

.....So German engineer Heinrich August  Meissner was told to build a functioning railway from Tul-Karem to BeerSheba, and into the South - {close to Kvish 6 today}     and these tracks actually came very close to the Sinai border of today. 

               ***((In World War I, Meissner served under Djemal Pasha, who was his personal friend from their time in Mesopotamia. He helped build the Ottoman military railway system in Palestine in the war. ))

The only railway tunnel in Palestine was built at this time [it is still there-in the Shomron]

 8... There were a few OAK tree forests in the Tulkarem area -  (1915-1917) but they were cut down by his workers to feed the Steam Engines. Eventually, they ran out of wood for his steam-engines.

      This is an update:-

Steve    in Jerusalem

[MidlandMike]

Is this just a Tel Aviv bypass, or will it parallel the present line thru most of the country?

[daveklepper]

Revive the present freight=only line north from Lod, through east edge of Ben Gurion Airport, presently no connetion to electrified Moddiin and Jerusalem to BG and TA crossing above, then linked to existing suburban TA - Kfar Saba line at Petah Tikva, then continue north to Hadera and then probably turn west to join the existing coast line at Benyamina or Acco and/or continiue north to Carmel and Afula, both linked to Haifa.

About 1/3 the total length of the country, more than just a TA bypass.