History
The station was opened on July 11, 1921 as a halt on the Beirut–Cairo railway line, constructed by the British during their Mandate of Palestine.
After the establishment of the State of Israel it became one of the combined passenger-freight stations on the Tel Aviv – Haifa railway line. The relatively low population density and the lack of places of interest in the area meant that the station's importance was minimal.
During the late 1990s the station underwent a massive change, both in design and its role in the Israel Railways network. The station underwent vast reconstruction that included the construction of an additional island platform, a tunnel under the tracks connecting the platforms and two adjacent bridges above them, as well as expansion of the station building while preserving the original stone structure. At the same time Israel Railways implemented a plan which made Binyamina Railway Station the northernmost station on the Tel Aviv suburban line (Binyamina/Netanya - Tel Aviv - Rehovot/Ashkelon Suburban Service) and the last station before Tel Aviv for Inter-City trains traveling on the Haifa – Tel Aviv route, making Binyamina Railway Station one of the most important interchange station in the entire Israel Railways network.
On July 16, 2001 the Binyamina Railway Station was the scene of a suicide bombing. The terror attack was executed by a Palesitnian who was sent by Palestinian Islamic Jihad and detonated himself on the crowded platform, killing 2 IDF soldiers, one of them a woman, and severely injuring one more soldier and at least 8 civilians.
During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict the station briefly acted as Israel's northernmost station after Israel Railways announced the suspension of all train service north of Binyamina as a result of a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket hitting a train depot in Haifa on July 16, 2006, killing 8 Israel Railways workers. Train service to both Atlit Railway Station and Hof HaCarmel Railway Station was reinstated several days later, after Israel Railways gave in to heavy public pressure, annulling its new and unfortunate status.
Read more about this topic: Binyamina Railway Station
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)