Behind the Headlines on the Right Track

The railroad was the stepchild of the Israeli economy for the first two decades of its history, just as it had been in the five decades which preceded it. The first railroad in the Middle East was built with Jewish capital in 1892, to link the port of Jaffa with Jerusalem.

But from then until 1916 the Turks, and from 1916 to 1948 the British Mandatory authorities, used the railway network only for military logistics purposes, to “control Palestine.”

It was this reason which led the Jewish yishuv to build up such a strong network of cooperative road transport services, for both passengers and freight.

Only in recent years has a serious effort been made to lay down and operate a modern rail service, partly because of the vast amounts of minerals now being moved to the ports for export from the Negev, and more lately because of the ever-rising costs of fuel for road haulage.

Israel Railways is now in a position to build new lines quickly and efficiently. But the engineers and planners are now held up by budgetary restrictions.

“We have to work at less than half speed, spreading over three years the work we could do in just over one year, because of the budget,” according to Israel State Railways general manager Zvi Tsafriri.

RAILROAD’S LATEST PROJECT

The railroad’s latest project is construction of a new 21 kilometer (13 mile) line and rebuilding another 27 kilometer stretch on the old coastal line built by British Gen. Allenby in 1917, to afford a direct link from Kiryat Gat to the port of Ashdod, shortening the existing roundabout route by 35 kilometers and avoiding the bottleneck of the Mandatory Lydda junction marshalling yards.

The work is made essential by the planned doubling of Negev mineral exports, mainly potash and phosphates, from 2.5 million tons to 5.1 million tons within the next three years.

The railway engineers and planners are proud of their work teams, made up of Arabs, veteran Israelis and new immigrants, mainly from the Soviet Union.

“We have sent our people abroad to study modern methods. They come back home, to improve on what they have learned and we are already exporting our new know-how and technical improvements to our former teachers in West Germany and elsewhere,” they say.

While the State Railways do the planning and actual rail laying themselves, earthwork construction of embankments and bridges is farmed out to 10 private contractors, working under railroad engineers control and supervision. The new “Heletz” line will cost $25 million, but because of the budget the work must be spread over three years.

PROCESS OF LAYING RAILS

Construction could be completed in less than that, and the laying of the rails is well under that. “And so we are forced to work on laying rails at half-a-kilometer a day instead of the kilometer a day we could really, and then for only 42 days to lay tracks on embankments and roadbeds the contractors have taken 18 months to complete,” according to Kalman Slutzker, the chief engineer.

The actual rails, imported from France, are laid on monoblock reinforced concrete ties (sleepers)’ made in Ashdod and laid down in groups of five, at the exact distance required by an Israeli invention. The complete 18-meter rail and tie section is then lifted aboard flatbed rail trucks and sent to the end of the line where they are lifted and moved forward, connected up and the train moves on another 18 meters.

To watch the operation is like viewing a film of the American West, with Israelis taking the place of far larger numbers of Chinese workers.

Another innovation is the on-spot welding of the rails into lengths of about one mile, to afford a smoother ride with less wear to the rolling-stock.

“Look at this form for the welding,” says the engineer in charge. Even the Americans have to import them from West Germany. But we have improved on the German model and now produce our own forms in our own workshops.”

It will be nearly another two years before the minerals start rolling along the new line. But the railroad engineers are already beginning to plan the fulfillment of their main dream — the Negev railroad to Eilat.