Palestine Railways Operations After WW1

Palestine Railways Operations After WW1

In April 1920 the San Remo conference mandated the United Kingdom to administer Palestine, a decision endorsed by a League of Nations mandate in 1922. In October 1920 railway administration was duly transferred from the military PMR to a new company, Palestine Railways (PR), owned by the British Mandate government. Throughout the military operations of the Ottoman and British Empires the Jaffa – Jerusalem railway had remained the property of the French Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements. The French sought £1.5 million from the British for the J&J but after arbitration accepted £565,000 paid in instalments. The Lydda – Jaffa section was converted from 600mm gauge to standard gauge and reopened in September 1920.

As PR's north-south main line had laid speedily for military purposes and its Jaffa – Jerusalem and Jezreel Valley lines were steeply graded, its trains were not very fast. Its highest speed limit was 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) and even its best trains achieved less than 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) overall between termini.

From 1920 PR developed a daily Haifa – El Kantara mixed traffic service. Wagons-Lits provided restaurant and sleeping cars three days per week until 1923, when this luxury service was increased to daily.

Palestine lacked a deep-water seaport until 1933 when one was built at Haifa. Until then, cargo that Palestinian ports could not handle would pass through Port Said in Egypt. Egyptian State Railways carried the freight between Port Said and El Kantara and PR carried it between El Kantara East and Palestine. No bridge was built across the Suez Canal until 1941, so freight was ferried across the canal between the ESR and PR stations on opposite banks at El Kantara. This would have included deliveries of locomotives and rolling stock to PR.

PR passenger traffic declined significantly in the 1920s and '30s. The competition from increasing numbers of private cars reduced first-class and then second-class passenger traffic, such that by 1934, 95% of remaining passengers were third-class. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 badly affected tourist traffic, from which the PR never recovered.

Palestine Railways The Pole Committee

As PR's finances deteriorated, in 1934 the United Kingdom government appointed a committee of investigation led by Sir Felix Pole, former chairman of Britain's Great Western Railway. Pole also had the specific task of advising to improve stations and the railway route to improve links between Jaffa, Tel-Aviv and Haifa. The other members of Pole's committee were C. M. Jenkin-Jones of Britain's London and North Eastern Railway and the accountant Sir Laurence Halsey, who was a partner in Price Waterhouse. Jenkin-Jones' specific task was to advise how to develop traffic facilities, traffic organisation and what rates to charge. Halsey was to advise on the accounting system and the establishment of an adequate renewals fund.

In the 1934–35 financial year Palestine Railways suffered a net deficit of £87,940. Later in 1935 Pole's committee published its report, which really was three related reports from the three committee members. Each member's recommendations called for considerable investment. Pole criticised the way the railway was operated around the key central junction at Lydda. It identified serious under-investment, reporting that Jaffa and Tel Aviv stations were "inadequate and unsuitable" and "traffic congestion was considerable" around Lydda. Passengers between Haifa and Tel Aviv or Jaffa had to change at Lydda, which was both inadequate for passengers and a source of congestion at Lydda station.

Pole therefore recommended building two new link lines from Tel Aviv to by-pass Lydda: a northerly one to Magdiel on the Haifa main line to create a direct Haifa – Tel Aviv – Jaffa route and a southerly one through Rishon LeZion and over the El Kantara main line at Rehoboth to a junction with the Jerusalem line at Niana.

In July 1935 in the UK House of Commons the Liberal MP Barnett Janner asked Malcolm MacDonald, Secretary of State for the Colonies:

"whether he is aware of the discontent with the present services provided by the Palestine Railways, and whether he can now give an assurance that, as a consequence of the recent official inquiry into this matter, remedial action will be set on foot during the current year?"

MacDonald Replied:

"Until a few years ago the financial position of Palestine restricted expenditure on the maintenance and improvement of the railways, but additional revenue is now available and considerable sums have already been spent and are about to be spent for this purpose. Any further action which may be found to be necessary arising out of recent expert enquiries will be taken as soon as possible."

Despite MacDonald's promise PR never received the necessary capital and neither of Pole's proposed lines was ever built by Palestine Railways. The only extension that Pole recommended and PR did build was a short extension for freight from Jaffa station to the harbour. Jaffa harbour was so constrained by hazardous rocks that only small vessels dared to enter it, ocean-going cargo ships would lie off-shore and transfer their freight to or from the docks by lighters. Pole's recommendation to rebuild the harbour was not implemented, so as a result PR's new freight line received little use.

Palestine Railways 1936–39 Arab Revolt

In 1936–39 Palestinian Arabs opposed to Jewish mass immigration revolted against British rule. Railways were a particular target for sabotage. The British built blockhouses to protect bridges and regular military patrols of railway lines. Patrols were initially on foot, then in armoured freight vans propelled by locomotives with armoured cabs, and finally with dozens of rail-mounted armoured cars built at Qishon works. After one was blown up by a mine, killing a soldier, the front of each armoured car was fitted with a long bar propelling a pony truck intended to detonate any mine safely without injuring any of the armoured car's occupants. British soldiers made Arab hostages ride on the pony truck so that any mine would be likely to kill them.

Security measures failed to stop attacks on the railway. One attack damaged a Sentinel railcar. In October 1937 a more serious attack damaged a passenger train and prompted a further decline in passenger numbers. In 1938 sabotage derailed 44 trains, damaged 33 rail-mounted armoured cars, destroyed 27 stations and other buildings, damaged 21 bridges and culverts and destroyed telephone and signalling equipment and water supplies. A member of the Survey of Palestine recalled that "nearly all the stations on the railway had been burnt". For more than one period night running became so dangerous that it was suspended. In September 1938 first the Jerusalem line and then El Kantara line were closed by extensive sabotage. After the latter was reopened in October, Haifa – El Kantara trains were run only three days per week compared with the previous daily service. The worst year was 1938, in which 13 railway workers were killed and 123 injured.

Palestine Railways World War II Extensions and Operations

During the Second World War traffic on PR increased dramatically from 1940 to 1945. The PR main line was a supply route for the North African Campaign that lasted from the Italian attack on Egypt in 1940 until the German surrender in Tunisia in May 1943. In April – May 1941 the Italian air force and German Luftwaffe used Vichy French air bases in the mandated territories of Syria and Lebanon as staging posts to support Rashid Ali's coup d'état against Iraq's pro-British government. British and Empire forces landed in southern Iraq and overthrew the coup in the brief Anglo-Iraqi War of May 1941. Then in June and July 1941 PR served as a supply route for the British Empire invasion of Vichy Syria and Lebanon.

PR suffered relatively few enemy air attacks. In 1941 Haifa suffered several air raids, one of which left an unexploded bomb within a few yards of the line. The last significant air attack on the railway was late in 1942, damaging the rail link to Haifa port. The attacks killed one railway worker and wounded ten more.

Palestine Railways Suez Canal Area

In June 1941 Australian Army Engineers started building a line alongside the Suez Canal southwards from PR's terminus at El Kantara. In July 1941 they connected the new line with Egyptian State Railways (ESR) by a swing bridge at El Ferdan across the canal. In August 1941 PR started operating a through service between Haifa and Cairo. Construction of the line beside the canal continued until July 1942 when it reached El Shatt. ESR then took over operation of the completed route.

Haifa – Beirut – Tripoli (HBT) Line

South African Army engineers built the first section of a new Haifa – Beirut – Tripoli (HBT) railway, branching off the 1050 mm gauge Haifa – Acre line and running along the rocky coast and through two tunnels to Beirut. For its construction the HBT initially used 1050 mm gauge track throughout the Haifa – Beirut section for through running of traffic carrying railway construction materials. The South Africans were transferred to other duties and the Haifa – Beirut section was completed by the New Zealand Railway Group. The New Zealand Railway Group also operated the 1050 mm gauge Jezreel Valley railway between Haifa and Daraa on the Syrian border, the Daraa – Damascus section of the 1050 mm gauge Hejaz railway main line and 60 miles (97 km) of branch lines including the 1050 mm line between Afula on the Jezreel Valley railway, Nablus, and Tulkarm on the main line between Haifa and Lydda. The Afula – Mas'udiya service ended in 1932, and the Tulkarm – Mas'udiya – Nablus service in 1938, except for a 5 km dual gauge section between Tulkarm and the ballast quarries at Nur Shams.

By August 1942, the Haifa – Beirut section was complete, the track was converted to standard gauge, and the stretch between Haifa and Acre, which was shared with the Jezreel Valley railway, to dual gauge. The new railway line started carrying through military traffic between Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon. By then Australian Royal Engineers were already building the Beirut – Tripoli section, which they completed in December 1942. PR operated the HBT between Haifa and Az-Zeeb just south of the Lebanese border and the British military Middle East Command operated the HBT between Az-Zeeb and Tripoli.

Palestine Railways Overview

Palestine Railways Headquarters: Khoury House, Haifa
Palestine Railways Locale: British Mandate of Palestine, northern coast of Sinai
Palestine Railways Dates of Operation: 1920–1948
Palestine Railways Predecessor: Sinai Military Railway, Jaffa–Jerusalem railway, Jezreel Valley and Acre branches of Hejaz railway
Palestine Railways Successor Israel: Israel Railways
Palestine Railways Egypt: Egyptian National Railways
Palestine Railways Track Gauge: 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge,
and 1,050 mm (3 ft 5+11⁄32 in)
Palestine Railways Previous Gauge: 1,050 mm (3 ft 5+11⁄32 in)