The direct Tel Aviv - Ben Gurion (Lod) Airport line was opened yesterday, 10 October. Evenings and nights Danish Flexiliners are used to reduce noise. Daytime sees push-pull Altsom diesels (GM engines) with double-deck cars and cab-hotel power cars nearly identicle to those used in Germany. Almost all trains run through to Haifa or Naharia in the North. Running time from the center of Tel Aviv (Haganah Station) iis ten minutes. Jerusalem, the Capitol City, remains without any rail service and the condition of the 104-year old architecturally significant station remains a real national disgrace.
The direct line is really an ego trip for the railways management. There was and may still be a freight line by a route twice as long that could have been rebuilt for about one tenth the cost and the money saved used to restore the original 1892 (originally narrow gauge, standard gauged by the British after WWI), line to Jerusalem with the Airport.
The new direct line is supposed to be extended to Mod’in (home of the Macabees) in 2005 or 2006. This will effectively make Mod’in more of a suburb of Tel Aviv than of Jerusalem, which has already been done with Beit Shemish (British called this Hartuv Junction), since the orginal line from Lod has been retored just that far, and the road the buses use from Beit Shemi***o Jerusalem is part way a crowded hilly curvey two lane road, nice for a sports car but not very good for commuting.
The bright note for Jerusalem is that work for preparations for the first light rail route continue on track. My own efforts are to try to get the light rail people to take over the line to Beit Shemish and restore it independently of the Railways to give Beit Shemish residents and people between the Jerusalem Zoo, the big shopping mall, and the railway station a better commute into Jerusalem.
The new Municipal adminstration has also greatly expanded the franchises of both the Egged bus cooperative and the Arab sector independent bus l