Jezreel Valley Railway - Current Status and Plans

Current Status and Plans

The Jezreel Valley railway fell into disrepair after the founding of the State of Israel, and as the years progressed, the chances of renovating the line diminished even further. The fact that the line was the only narrow gauge line in Israel meant that its rolling stock was incompatible with the rest of Israel Railways' network, a fact which greatly contributed to the line's demise. The significant cost to convert the line to standard gauge was considered too prohibitive to be carried out in the early days of the state. Since then there have been several attempts to rebuild the railway along approximately the same route.

In 1988, a decision was passed to renew the Jezreel Valley railway, and plans were made to alter the historical route to conform to new realities on the ground in several points on the route. However, it was not until ten years later, in 1998, that a survey of the land was made to inspect its suitability for a modern railway line, which was also not immediately used. Several years later, major foreign investment began flowing into the country following the worldwide early 2000s recession, which prompted resuming discussions about renewing the valley railway which has regional importance for transporting goods to/from parts of Israel and Jordan via rail links for export/import through Israeli seaports on the Mediterranean sea.

On October 28, 2002, the Transportation Ministry of Israel and the minister Ephraim Sneh announced in a press release that Israel Railways started extensive planning of the valley line's renovation, at a cost of NIS 40 million for the planning stage, and an additional NIS 1 billion to be appropriated later for the construction itself. The railway would connect Haifa with the Sheikh Hussein Bridge on the Jordan River, on a 74 km route. It would later be extended by Jordan to Irbid. The original planned completion date was the second half of 2007.

In 2003, the new Minister of Transportation Avigdor Lieberman announced that in July 2005, work would start on the renewal of the line. Plans for a national infrastructure project were presented which would further alter the rail route, due to changes on the ground since the 1988 plans. These changes included relocating the Afula section to a partially underground route between Afula and Afula Illit, instead of its previous location in the very center of the city. By the end of 2005, many of the plans were approved by the Construction and Planning Committees, which called for the completion of the line by 2010. Five stations were approved: Haifa East, Nesher, Kfar Yehoshua (in a different location from the historical one), Afula and Beit She'an. Israel Railways also proposed a completely new route to connect the Beit She'an station to Jordan, via the Sheikh Hussein bridge, as well as a future revival of the historical extension to Jenin to serve the Palestinian Authority.

However, work did not start in 2003. In November 2005, there was still no progress to be seen, and the extensive planning was not fully completed. In a press release on November 30, 2005, Transportation Minister Meir Sheetrit announced that he was considering connecting Nazareth and Migdal HaEmek to the planned valley railway, and that the railway would be completed in 2008–09 (starting construction in 2006). The original plans to build a full dual-track railway in the initial phase were scrapped in favor of single-track for most of the route (between Nesher and Beit She'an). On February 22, 2006, Israel Railways and the Nature and Parks Authority transferred 1,500 endangered geophytes from the route of the railway.

Although the atmosphere remained optimistic, and some Israeli railway maps labeled the line as 'under construction', actual work had yet to begin on the valley railway (besides preliminary design work and right-of-way purchases). On February 24, 2010 the Israeli government voted to appropriate the sum of NIS 3.5 billion (since then raised to 4.1 billion, equivalent to about US$1.15 billion) for the detailed design and construction of the railway between Haifa and Beit Shea'an beginning in 2011. On March 7, 2011 the National Roads Authority, which is in charge of managing the project, published a design-build tender for a 6.5 km section of the line near Afula. This was the first of a dozen tenders which the authority published through mid-2012 for the railway and five stations with overall completion of construction expected in 2016. The railway will be constructed as single-track but with significant provisioning for double-tracking and electrification in a future follow-up project. It will terminate in Beit Shea'an, with the extension to the border crossing at the Sheikh Hussein bridge, which will require significant tunneling and bridging, being planned for a later stage. As of late 2012, extensive construction activities are taking place in multiple locations along the route between Haifa and Beit Shea'an.