Railway line Lod – Hadera Mizrach

The New Eastern Railway or Railway Line Lod – Hadera Mizrach ( Hebrew הַמְּסִלָּה הַמִּזְרָחִית הַחֲדָשָׁה ha-Məsillah ha-Mizrachīt ha-Chadaschah , German 'the New Eastern Railway' ) is a railway line under construction in Israel . It follows the route of the old Eastern Railway between the Hadera Mizrach (Hadera Ost) and Lod (Lydda) stations , but will no longer have level crossings.

New Eastern Railway Hadera – Lod
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
State :	Israel
Kilometers :	Counting from Haifa Mizrach
Legend Coastal tram on the main line   via Haifa from Nahariya 44.7 Caesarea - Pardes Channah 48.5 Coastal tram of the main line   via Tel Aviv to Beersheba 50 Hadera Mizrach   only goods since 1920 , from 2026 also people 58 Achituv - Emeq Chief from 2026   Qaqun 1937–1948   Achituv 1948–1968 of logging in the ʿIron forest  in Kafr Qara 1915–1918 The green line separates the old route Green line Military Train of Maṣ'ūdiyya Tulkarm Green line End of bypass 70 Tayyibe new from 2026 76 Tira - Kochav Ja'ir – Zur Jig'al from 2026 Ejal 1948–1968   Qalqiliya 1915–1948, then   the Green Line separated the station and town 81 Kfar Saba Zafon new from 2026 Sharon orbit of Raʿanana 90 Rosh ha-Ayin Zafon since 2003 Jarqon Railway to Tel Aviv 91 Rosh ha-ʿAjin Darom from 2026   Ras el-ʿAin 1915–1948   Rosh ha-ʿAjin 1948–93 and 2000–03 96 Elʿad from 2026 Rinnatia 1948-1993   Rantiya 1933-1948 to quarries near Tirat Jehuda Branch line from Yahudiya to the supply base at Beit Nabala   1918–1949 to al-Lubban 104 Teʿufah from 2026   Kafr Dschinnis 1915–1933 Tel Aviv – Jerusalem high-speed line from the high-speed line from Tel Aviv 109 Lod Zafon from 2026 J&J line from Jaffa / Tel Aviv 111 Lod since 1891 Sinai Railway to Ashqelon   until 1948 on to El Qantara J&J line to Jerusalem-Malcha and  train to Ramat Chovav until 1927 to  Be'er Scheva, until 1917 to el-Qusaima

history

Most of the route (section Lod to near Chaderas) was created in 1915 by German and Ottoman soldiers of the Central Powers under the direction of railway engineer Heinrich August Meißner for the Ottoman military railroad in Palestine , in order to be able to get supplies to the Sinai and Palestine front in the First World War . This section was initially built with a gauge of 1050 mm, like the more northerly routes ( Samariabahn ), to which it connected in Silat eẓ-Ẓahr .

This route ran at a reasonable distance out of firing range east of the coast (hence the Eastern Railway ), but through less common terrain, as the British Navy dominated the entire coastline of the Levant and was able to take it under gunfire. The Ottoman military railway Maṣʿūdiyya – Sinai reached via the new railway junction Maṣʿūdiyya , then between Lod and Wadi Sarar a section of the J&J line Jaffa – Jerusalem , opened in 1892 , finally including the Egyptian Sinai peninsula .

In the course of the British conquest of the country in 1917/1918, the British military railways in Palestine from the Sultanate of Egypt built their own rail network in standard gauge (1435 mm) and took over partly occupied Ottoman routes by gauging them.

The military railways widened the military railroad Maṣʿūdiyya-Sinai between Be'er Scheva in the south and Tulkarm in the north to standard gauge and extended it through the Sharon plain , where they used the route of the branch line built for the purpose of wood extraction into the forests near Chaderas, then northwards on a new route on Along the coastline to Haifa , where rail operations began on November 1, 1920. This made the Ostbahn part of the Palestine Railways mainline from El Qantara in Egypt to Haifa.

In 1954, the line on the coastline was also extended south to Tel Aviv-Jaffa ( coastal railway from the Lebanese border to the connection to the Jaffa – Jerusalem line, today served by the main Naharija – Be'er Scheva line ). Between Lod on the J&J line and the connection to the coastal railway shortly after Hadera Mizrach, the railway line is known as the Eastern Railway ( Hebrew הַמְּסִלָּה הַמִּזְרָחִית ha-Məsillah ha-Mizrachīt ) or after the expansion without crossing as the New Eastern Railway .

The section of the military railway Maṣʿūdiyya – Sinai between Tulkarm and Maṣʿūdiyya as well as the Samariabahn kept their narrow gauge and stopped the traffic at the end of the 1930s due to a lack of freight, which increasingly accounted for freight traffic with the expansion of the roads. As a result of the war for Israel's independence in 1948/1949, the Green Line cut the Eastern Railway, as the section around and in Tulkarm now belonged to Jordan . The Israeli state railway Rakkevet Israel took over the Palestine Railways and in 1949 connected both strands of the Eastern Railway by bypassing Tulkarm on Israeli territory.

Between the Hadera Mizrach and Rosh ha-ʿAjin train stations, traffic was completely suspended in 1968, tracks were removed and routes were partly built over from 1969 onwards. From the junction of the Jarqon Railway southwards, the Eastern Railway serves as a freight bypass railway for the heavily traveled route in the Ajjalon Valley in the Tel Aviv urban area.

Status of planning and construction

The construction of the route will cost 2.5 billion euros . A 65 km long route with new or renewed stops and train stations is planned , including an extension of the Hadera Mizrach freight station to include a passenger station. The others are: Achituv - Emeq Chefer (1920–1948: Qaqun, 1948–1968: Achituv), Tayyibe (new), Tira - Kochav Ja'ir – Zur Jig'al (new), Kfar Saba Zafon (new), Elʿad , Teʿufah (Airport City; new) and Lod Zafon (new). The stations Rosh ha-ʿAjin Zafon (opened in 2003) and Rosh ha-ʿAjin Darom (again from 2026; 1915–1993 and 2000–2003: Rosh ha-ʿAjin) are to be expanded in the course of the new building. The route will have 30 crossing-free road crossings and road crossings.

After the necessary expropriation procedures for the land in question had been completed, construction of the northern section, which runs along Landstrasse 6 , began on June 11, 2019 . The construction company Solel Boneh won the contract for the construction work .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Building on the Eastern Line to Start . In: HaRakevet 126 (September 2019), p. 4