Rail Transport in Israel

Israel Railways operates the national intercity and suburban railway system, while urban light rail constitutes a separate form of public transport rather than an extension of the same operating system.[1][2] The national company’s responsibilities encompass passenger transport, freight, commercial activity, infrastructure development, maintenance, stations, and railway equipment.[1] Both its ongoing operations and its development activities receive state subsidies.[1]

The system combines passenger connections between major population centres with freight routes serving ports, mineral-producing areas, and other industrial activities.[1] In the company’s 2023 reporting, regular passenger services called at 67 stations and extended from Nahariya and Karmiel in the north to Beersheba and Dimona in the south, with Jerusalem to the east.[1] These figures describe the network at that reporting date, before subsequent additions such as the eastern line’s initial section in 2026.[1][7]

Railway development has involved both the rehabilitation of older corridors and the construction of substantially different infrastructure.[3] The Jerusalem connection illustrates this change particularly clearly: an older winding railway through the hills was followed by an electrified connection using extensive tunnels and bridges and a deep underground terminus.[4] Urban projects have followed another path, with Jerusalem’s light rail beginning operation in 2011 and the Tel Aviv metropolitan Red Line opening in August 2023.[3][2]

Expansion has not eliminated capacity constraints.[3] In 2023, overcrowding on most intercity journeys, shortages of railway cars, and the absence of service to the outer periphery remained identified shortcomings.[3] The Ayalon corridor’s central position also meant that disruption there could affect timetables across the national network.[8]

The Jaffa–Jerusalem railway opened in 1892, linking the port of Jaffa with a city that was a major destination for pilgrims and tourists.[4] Moses Montefiore promoted an early railway proposal, and Joseph Navon obtained a concession on 28 October 1888.[4][9] After Navon and his partner could not finance construction, a French company built the line between 1890 and 1892.[4] Its one-metre gauge accommodated the curves of the Sorek Valley, and construction included approximately 80 small bridges.[4]

Passenger operation initially comprised one train a day, subsequently increasing to two and, in the pilgrimage season, as many as four.[4] An initial journey of about six hours had fallen to three and a half hours by 1901, while freight trains carried goods inland from Jaffa.[4] Rails were imported from Belgium and coal from Britain.[10] Jaffa station served tourists, pilgrims, and businesspeople, and by 1913 handled 43,000 tons of freight annually.[9]

The Ottoman Empire’s Hejaz Railway, built between 1900 and 1908, placed the Haifa branch within a larger undertaking connecting Damascus with the Hejaz region.[5] Its purposes included facilitating the hajj and moving Ottoman troops and supplies, and Muslim donations collected internationally helped finance it.[5] Regular operation was concentrated mainly in the pilgrimage season, and its economic benefit was limited.[5] German engineers completed the Haifa–Daraa connection in 1906, linking it with the Hejaz system.[11]

The historic Jezreel Valley, or Emek, railway opened in October 1905 between Haifa and Hamat Gader, using a narrow gauge of 1,050 millimetres.[12] Competition among railway companies delayed or prevented planned extensions.[13] A 17-kilometre section reached Jenin in 1913, and wartime extensions subsequently reached Tulkarm and Lod, connecting with the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway and the route toward Sinai.[13] The railway transported building materials for communal villages and contributed to population growth in remote northern areas.[13]

Engineering and operating difficulties were recorded during the Hejaz project’s early years.[5] Karl Lorenz Auler, a Prussian officer serving as an Ottoman military adviser, surveyed sections in 1904, including the Damascus–Ma’an route and Haifa branch, as well as the stretch from Ma’an to Al-‘Ula.[5] His reports addressed terrain, water and fuel supplies, and termites damaging wooden sleepers; an album of 68 photographs he took in 1907 survives in the National Library of Israel’s collections.[5]

During the First World War, Ottoman authorities took over the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway and used it to transport food, military equipment, and goods for Jerusalem’s residents.[4] As British forces approached Jerusalem, Ottoman forces damaged tracks, locomotives, and railway cars; the British repaired the line for their own forces.[4] By 1918, the British also controlled the Emek railway.[13] A separate Decauville light railway connected Jaffa and Tel Aviv’s port with the Yarkon River during the war, continued for about a decade afterward, and was then dismantled.[2]

The transition from military to civil railway administration in 1920 was followed by extensive improvement.[6] Works included conversion of narrow-gauge track to standard gauge, bridge rebuilding, new stations, expanded traffic facilities, and large mechanical workshops at Qishon near Haifa.[6] The Jaffa–Jerusalem line was converted to standard gauge in 1920 and underwent major renovation in 1923.[14] During the 1930s, railway activity shifted away from Jaffa toward Tel Aviv’s Beit Hadar station.[9]

By the time of a 1947 survey, Palestine Railways administered a regional system extending across Palestine, Sinai, and Transjordan, with running rights in Syria.[6] Its 1,048 route kilometres included 520 kilometres in Palestine and comprised standard-gauge, 105-centimetre-gauge, and dual-gauge track.[6] Principal routes included Jaffa–Jerusalem, Rafa–Haifa, and Hejaz branches from Haifa to Acre, Haifa to Samakh, and Tulkarm to Affule.[6] Before the War of Independence, rail links also connected the country with Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.[15]

Freight was especially important under the Mandate, including grain, provisions, building materials, imported bulk commodities, potash, citrus exports, and oil for local consumption, much of it moving through Haifa Port.[6] Railways carried only a minor share of internal passenger traffic because inconvenient alignments and single-track operation restricted the speed and frequency required for short journeys.[6] During the Second World War, Haifa and Lydda marshalling yards were enlarged and modernized, locomotives were converted from coal to oil, and administration was centralized in Haifa.[6]

Wartime traffic rose sharply: passenger journeys, excluding season-ticket holders, increased from 616,009 in 1938/39 to 2,951,988 in 1943/44, while goods traffic increased from 825,860 to 2,589,036 tons.[6] About half the traffic at the time was military, and the average standard-gauge goods-train load increased from approximately 140 tons before the war to 190 tons during it.[6] The Haifa–Lydda main line reached full capacity, with further growth requiring costly double-tracking and realignment.[6] At the end of 1944/45, Palestine Government Railways had an accumulated debit balance of £P140,000, excluding the Hejaz and Kantara–Rafa railways; the Hejaz system also had a heavy accumulated deficit.[6]

Railways became targets during the conflict preceding independence.[16] On 29 February 1948, Lehi mined the Cairo–Haifa train north of Rehovot, targeting four cars carrying British troops and killing at least 27 soldiers and wounding 35, without civilian casualties in that attack.[16] Lehi described the attack as retaliation for the Ben Yehuda Street bombing in Jerusalem a week earlier.[16]

The War of Independence damaged transport infrastructure and left railway lines severed by new borders.[15] Parts of the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway were blown up, and rails were taken for use by the Egyptian army.[4] Israel sought restoration of the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem connection during the Rhodes negotiations, and Israel Railways repaired the route.[4] Land exchanges with Jordan near Battir and Beit Safafa kept its course within Israeli territory.[4] A photograph preserved in the Zionist Archives records the first Israel Railways train arriving in Jerusalem in 1949.[17]

Much of the Valley railway had been destroyed by Jewish resistance movements seeking to weaken British rule after the Second World War, leaving the Jezreel Valley section disconnected from eastern and southern extensions.[13] After independence, the high expense of modernization and maintenance prevented its sustained revival.[13] Occasional tourism and troop movements continued before final closure in 1951.[18]

During Israel’s first four decades, the railway relied heavily on inherited British infrastructure and equipment, with limited service used mainly for tourism rather than ordinary public transportation.[3] Security and other existential priorities absorbed substantial national resources and constrained infrastructure development.[3] Nevertheless, post-independence investment amid immigration-driven population growth included a north–south railway from Haifa to Beersheba and Dimona.[15]

In 1986, the system comprised 528 kilometres, connecting Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba; an overview completed in 1988 also identified Ashdod among the linked centres.[19] Plans included extending the Beersheba line along the Dead Sea and south to Eilat, and developing rapid rail between Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv.[19] Actual traffic in 1985 amounted to 2,814,000 passenger journeys and 6,086,000 tons of freight, principally phosphates, grain, coal, and potash.[19] Rail use had declined between 1965 and 1985 amid service reductions; in 1986, road travel was faster on every railway route except Haifa–Tel Aviv, where journey times were equal.[19]

The 1985 economic stabilization plan created conditions for transport reform, with a broader reform process beginning in 1992 under Yitzhak Rabin’s government.[3] Measures across public transport included opening markets to private operators, decentralizing responsibilities, and establishing NTA for central-region mass transit.[3] Railway infrastructure expansion and modern rolling stock accompanied rising use, within this wider reform programme.[3] Passenger journeys increased from about 5.5 million in 1996 to 9 million in 1999 and 13 million in 2000.[15]

The railway’s institutional transformation involved several distinct stages.[1] Initially a Ministry of Transport unit, it joined the Ports Authority in 1988; a December 1996 government decision subsequently provided for transfer to a government company.[1] Israel Railways Ltd. was incorporated in January 1998 as wholly state-owned and began operating in July 2003, when railway activity was separated from the Ports and Railways Authority.[1]

Israel Railways recorded approximately 62.5 million passenger journeys in 2023, up 14.2% from 54.7 million in 2022, following 35 million in 2021.[1] Average daily journeys across those years were respectively 242,000, 219,000, and 141,000, while annual punctuality was 94.2%, 95.69%, and 96.34%.[1] Earlier traffic had reached 70 million journeys in 2019.[8]

Passenger journeys reached 71.8 million in 2025, approximately 10% above 2024.[20] Tel Aviv HaShalom was the busiest station, with 17.2 million passengers, while system-wide records included 376,000 passengers on 21 December and 7.3 million journeys during December.[20] A separate review recorded 647 passenger trains daily in 2025, compared with 562 in 2019, and a 26% increase in available seating.[21] It also recorded an average of approximately 312,000 passengers daily and 52 million journeys in the first nine months of 2025.[21]

Jerusalem’s railway development involved both an attempted revival of the old route and construction of a new one.[4] The historic line declined as road connections improved, particularly after the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem highway opened, and closed in 1998 as slow journeys discouraged passengers.[4] Seven alternatives were presented to the National Planning and Building Council in 1999, including rehabilitation, a new route via Modi’in, and a route broadly following Highway 1.[4] A 2001 decision advanced both an old-line upgrade and the new Highway 1 corridor.[4]

Passenger trains returned to the old route in April 2005 after seven years, with a journey of about one hour and twenty minutes.[4] Curves in the Sorek Valley accelerated wheel wear, and suggestions emerged to use the line for freight or waste transport rather than passengers.[4] Construction of the new A1 line began in 2006.[3]

The new Jerusalem connection was designed as an electrified railway linking Jerusalem with Ben-Gurion Airport and, following further electrification, Tel Aviv and the national network.[4] Its approximately 57-kilometre route included a final section of about 30 kilometres between Kfar Daniel and Jerusalem, with approximately 20 kilometres of tunnels and five kilometres of bridges.[4] Yitzhak Navon station was built as an underground terminus about 80 metres below ground, opposite the International Convention Centre.[4] One tunnel extends 11.6 kilometres.[22]

A three-month trial began on 25 September 2018, initially with two trains an hour and 27 daily departures in each direction.[4] During the trial, the new service carried 275,000 more passengers than the old Jerusalem line had carried throughout 2016.[4] Initially, passengers continuing toward Tel Aviv had to change at Ben-Gurion Airport.[23] Direct service to Tel Aviv HaHagana began on 21 December 2019; journeys took about 32–34 minutes.[1][22]

By 2021, regular weekday departures from Jerusalem toward Tel Aviv numbered approximately 35, journeys took 30–45 minutes depending on destination, and through trains reached Herzliya.[23] The Jerusalem–Ben-Gurion Airport section carried 409,580 passengers in the fourth quarter of 2018; the older Jerusalem–Tel Aviv route recorded 420,010 that quarter, including passengers travelling only part of it.[23] The Jerusalem–Tel Aviv section reached 752,960 passengers in the first quarter of 2020.[23]

Passenger service ceased entirely in April and May 2020 and resumed later that year.[23] Fourth-quarter 2020 traffic was 352,800, 53% below the first-quarter figure, and the Jerusalem–Ben-Gurion Airport count fell another 4% to 338,800 in the first quarter of 2021.[23] For 2023, Jerusalem’s railway statistics recorded 3,936,352 arrivals and 3,979,903 departures.[24]

The modern Valley railway restored a northern east–west passenger corridor after decades without regular service.[12][18] Construction began in 2011 using standard-gauge rails, and the line opened in October 2016 along almost the historic alignment, linking the Haifa area with Yokne’am–Kfar Yehoshua, Migdal HaEmek, Afula, and Beit She’an.[12] The approximately 60-kilometre route was inaugurated with five initial stations, a journey of about 50 minutes, and investment of NIS 4 billion.[18] It provided passenger transport and access to Haifa Port for freight; a Jordanian extension remained a prospective possibility.[12]

Electrification developed through a protracted sequence of planning, procurement, and construction.[3][8] Discussions began in 2000, an initial tender was issued in 2005 and cancelled in 2007, and a replacement tender followed in 2015.[3][8] Construction began in 2017 and included substations, garages, and technical facilities.[8] In 2024, approximately 70% of electrical infrastructure deployment was reported complete, and electric trains accounted for about 60% of train traffic.[25]

The first eastern-line section opened in June 2026, creating a major railway route not passing through Tel Aviv.[7] Its initial 42 kilometres ran from Hadera East through new Shomron–Tayyiba and Kokhav Yair–Tira stations to Rosh Ha’ayin.[7] Another 22 kilometres toward Lod, including Shoham station, were expected the following year.[7] The total project’s estimated cost was approximately NIS 8.5 billion, with an anticipated increase of roughly 30% in national travel capacity.[7]

Jerusalem’s light rail began operation in 2011.[3] The state bought back the Red Line concession in 2018, a new winning company received the concession in 2020, and a tender to choose a builder for an additional line concluded in 2021.[3]

Tel Aviv’s urban transit programme, overseen by NTA, includes plans for metro, light rail, and bus rapid transit.[2] Its Red Line opened on 18 August 2023, covering 24 kilometres between Bat Yam and Petah Tikva through Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, and Ramat Gan.[2] It has 34 stations, including ten underground stops.[2] Earlier metropolitan ambitions included a mid-1960s subway proposal for which only a station at Shalom Meir Tower was completed, without any rails being laid.[2]

Freight operations in 2023 averaged approximately 42 trains daily and carried about 5.9 million tonnes during the year.[1] Principal flows included southern minerals bound for Ashdod Port and containers moving to, from, and between Haifa and Ashdod ports.[1] Movement between the two ports accounted for about half of container carriage, while other listed cargoes included grain, sand, waste, steel, and aggregates.[1]

Procurement has drawn on international contractors, although participation has varied by sector.[26] Between 2001 and June 2022, Chinese companies bid on two of seven intercity railway tenders examined: the Mount Gilon tunnel on the Karmiel–Acre line and locomotive supply, winning the tunnel contract.[26] They did not bid on several other tenders involving track laying, railcar upgrades, electrification, and signalling; a 2017 railcar tender required a European platform.[26]

Passenger rail’s growth from a few million journeys to approximately 70 million annually marked a substantial change in its public-transport role.[3] New infrastructure and modern railway cars supported that expansion, while millions of passengers travelled on Israel Railways between 2010 and 2023 without a passenger fatality during that period.[3]

Freight rail offers a means of reducing dependence on road haulage.[27] In 2018, rail freight represented about 6% of Israeli goods movement, compared with 15–18% in Western Europe, while a freight train could replace approximately 60–70 trucks.[27] Limited freight infrastructure and insufficient rail connections to industrial zones constrained expansion.[27] A journey from Beersheba North to the Tzefa freight terminal illustrated the southern mineral traffic, carrying phosphate, potash, and bromine in a load equivalent to approximately 60 trucks.[28]

Railway heritage has also acquired cultural uses distinct from transport operation.[4][13] Jerusalem’s old station was restored as a cultural and leisure centre, with a railway park developed along part of the former route.[4] Along the Valley railway, restored Kfar Yehoshua station buildings, old railway cars, and a museum preserve the earlier system, while former residents undertook restoration at Elroi.[13] Historic stations do not necessarily serve as stops on the modern railway, and their relationship to new station buildings varies.[13]

Railways feature in proposals for broader national and regional connectivity.[29] The proposed $27 billion “One Israel Project,” announced in 2023, envisaged linking Kiryat Shmona and Eilat within ten years, with trains reaching up to 155 miles per hour.[29] Benjamin Netanyahu presented a goal of reaching commercial and governmental centres from anywhere in Israel within two hours or less and suggested a future railway connection to Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula.[29] These were announced ambitions, not completed routes or an agreed international connection.[29]

Military logistics represents another potential application rather than an established operating role for a dedicated system.[30] A developed railway network could help move forces and reduce reliance on roads, but the IDF had not decided to use freight trains for that purpose in the analysis describing the proposal.[30]

Major railway projects have attracted criticism over cost, timing, and value for money.[3][25] The Tel Aviv Red Line’s planned NIS 7 billion budget initially received only NIS 2 billion in 1998; a tender issued in 2001 produced a winner in 2007, followed by financial difficulties in 2008 and transfer of the concession to NTA after nationalization.[3] Commercial service began in August 2023 rather than the anticipated 2012, with costs by opening approaching NIS 20 billion.[3]

The Jerusalem fast railway also experienced repeated delays, including a pause for review of costs and economic viability and further delays for regulatory and emergency-service approvals.[4] Originally expected to open in 2008, it began partial operation in 2018.[31] Its official reported construction cost was NIS 6.9 billion, with other estimates reaching NIS 9 billion.[22] The old route’s 2005 rehabilitation had likewise drawn criticism over overruns and lengthy journeys, while the Valley railway’s NIS 4 billion investment prompted questions about expected demand and local congestion.[4][18]

Electrification deadlines shifted repeatedly.[25] A 2024 report valued the programme at NIS 12 billion and recorded a revised official completion target of July 2027, against an original 2021 ambition, with 2030 also raised as a possible later date.[25] War disruption, restricted working periods, strikes, breakdowns, and contractor disputes were among the reported causes.[25]

Political and labour questions also affected railway development.[4][32] Alternatives considered in 1999 that crossed the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — were rejected for political reasons in the planning account.[4] Following independence, the railway’s need for skilled Palestinian workers, including workers who had become refugees abroad and sought to return to their jobs, intersected with policies separating labour markets along national and ethnic lines.[32]