Acre Railway Station

Modern Acre station serves passenger trains in northern Israel. In June 2024, service through Acre was described as part of the Beersheba–Nahariya line via all Tel Aviv stations, with night trains from Acre reaching coastal stations as far south as Ben Gurion Airport.[1]

A 1918 guidebook described the railway station of its period as just outside the Gate of Acre, after the road passed the city's public garden.[2] The available sources do not establish that the modern station occupies that historical site or building.[3][2]

The railway connection to Acre has roots in Ottoman-era Hejaz Railway development. A British handbook identifies the railway as state-owned, says the Damascus–Deraa–Ma’an main line was completed in 1904, and lists the Akka–Beled esh-Sheikh section among additional lines built between 1904 and 1917.[4] The handbook identifies that Acre branch as a 17-kilometre line connecting Akka with Haifa and also calls it the Haifa line.[4]

As early as 1894, the Syria Ottoman Railway Company had published a map charting a proposed railway route from Akka (Acre) to Damascus, a document held in the National Library of Israel's Amir Cahanovitc Collection.[5] A historical guide states that the line to Acre diverged near Beled esh-Sheikh, approximately three miles from Haifa.[2]

The construction of Haifa's rail connection to the wider network ultimately diminished Acre's commercial standing. By 1906, Haifa had become the Mediterranean port of the Hejaz Railway, connected by rail with Deraa, Bosra, Akka, Afule, Ludd, and Jerusalem.[4] Grain and sesame from the Esdraelon plain, the upper Jordan Valley, and the Hauran moved through Haifa, and Acre lost relative importance because Haifa was better positioned to handle Hauran cereals.[4]

A 1945–1946 Survey of Palestine lists the Haifa–Acre section as part of the Hijaz Railway in Palestine, operating on a 105-centimetre gauge alongside the Haifa–Samakh and Tulkarm–Afula sections.[3] The broader Palestine railway system at that time comprised 1,048 kilometres of track in total, of which 520 kilometres were located within Palestine; the Palestine portion included 316 kilometres of standard-gauge track, 178 kilometres of 105-centimetre-gauge track, and 26 kilometres of dual-gauge track.[3]

Administration and operational control of the railway system were centralized at Haifa, where major mechanical workshops were located at Qishon.[3] The Hijaz Railway in Palestine was operated by the Palestine Government on behalf of His Majesty's Government, with any operating losses charged to Palestine Government funds.[3] For the 1944–1945 period, total Palestine railway goods traffic reached 2,231,001 tons, including 423,323 tons of imports and 280,835 tons of exports, with the main flow concentrated to and from Haifa Port.[3] The survey does not provide separate passenger or freight figures for the Haifa–Acre section specifically.[3]

Acre station and its immediate surroundings have figured in two terrorism-related security incidents.

On March 4, 2018, an Israeli Arab from Shfaram carried out a vehicular terrorist attack in Acre. After initially ramming a pedestrian elsewhere in the city, the attacker drove to the train station and struck three additional people—two soldiers and one civilian. A Border Policeman shot and seriously wounded the driver.[6] The Israel Police characterized the incident as a vehicular attack carried out with nationalist motivation, stating that the driver had deliberately targeted police officers and soldiers.[6]

On September 30, 2025, Issa Madi, an 18-year-old resident of Acre, was detained on suspicion of identifying with ISIS and planning to attack soldiers with an explosive device at a bus stop near the train station.[7] Investigators reported that Madi had taken steps to prepare explosives and had been in contact with ISIS operatives abroad.[7] The account concerned an alleged plot rather than a completed attack or an adjudicated conviction.[7]