Palestine Railways Traffic Growth 1943-1944

Palestine Railways Traffic Growth 1943-1944

Completion of the Ferdan bridge and HBT hugely enhanced PR's strategic role. PR's annual freight traffic grew from 858,995 tons in 1940-41 to 2,194,848 tons in 1943-44. The huge growth in the number of trains increased the potential for accidents. There were three head-on collisions and in 1942 six H class 4-6-0s were written off in accidents. The war effort both increased wear on equipment and reduced resources for maintenance. In November 1944 a downpour derailed an El Kantara – Haifa train, killing seven people and injuring 40.

Palestine Railways 1945–1948

Most ROD and S200 locomotives were withdrawn from Palestine before the end of the Second World War and the remaining few soon followed, but PR took 24 LMS 8F's and the two S100s into its locomotive fleet.

In 1945 Zionist paramilitary organisations formed an alliance, the Jewish Resistance Movement, which launched a war against British administration in which members of the Palmach, Irgun and Lehi organisations sabotaged the PR network at 153 places throughout Palestine. Terrorists robbed a train delivering wages to railway staff. In 1946 a terrorist bomb demolished the main part of the Haifa East station building. In the Night of the Bridges of 16–17 June that year, Palmach saboteurs destroyed 11 road and rail links with neighbouring countries including PR's 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge links with Egypt and Lebanon and its 1,050 mm (3 ft 5+11⁄32 in) gauge link with Syria.

On 22 April 1947, terrorists blew up an El Kantara – Haifa train near Rehovot, killing five British soldiers and a number of civilians. As security deteriorated, theft from the railway increased. British security forces failed to intervene to protect the railway and in some cases took part in looting its assets. In January 1948 the General Manager, Arthur Kirby, vainly pleaded with Sir Henry Gurney, Chief Secretary of the Mandate Government, for adequate armed protection for the railway and its 6,000 staff, otherwise they would cease to do their duty and "I cannot guarantee to keep the railways operating".

In February Kirby Noted:

...locomotives wrecked by mines have been repaired time and time again so that most of them, though blown up several times, are still working after 28 years of service – and working efficiently... We have no fewer than 50 personnel of the train crews absent from duty, some in hospital, suffering from the effects of having been interfered with while trying to perform their duty. Men have been killed while performing their duties. Running trains are subject to attack and the principal marshalling depot is constantly being fired over by snipers... but so long as the present Railway Management exists, it will endeavour to maintain the railways and ports as fully as possible without fear or favour and irrespective of politics.

On 31 March 1948 another train was blown up by a terrorist mine near Binyamina south of Haifa, killing 40 civilians and wounding 60. By April 1948 Kirby described snipers' and saboteurs' killing of railway staff as "incessant". In 1948 terrorists attacked PR's head office, Khoury House in Haifa, and the resulting fire badly damaged the accounts department. PR's telephone and telegraph network was destroyed and Jewish terrorists stole Kirby's car at gunpoint.

Kirby instructed his staff:

The intention of the Management is that the Railways will be kept in operation and handed over on 15th May as a going concern. The severe loss of Khoury House, Headquarters, and the secession of Arab staff in Haifa will not interfere with this intention... All staff reporting for duty will be allocated to the best advantage, irrespective of the Branch in which they have been hitherto employed...

Privately Kirby wrote to Gurney:

I have been expected to carry on the railways and ports under almost impossible conditions. I have taken upon myself risks and responsibilities that have seldom, if ever befallen the General Manager of a Colonial Railway. I have achieved more than could have been hoped for....

Palestine Railways Aftermath

By the time the British withdrew from the Mandate in May 1948, railway operations had effectively ceased. For the remainder of 1948 railway services in the new State of Israel were confined to the area around Haifa, running southwards on the main line as far as Hadera and northwards to Kiryat Motzkin and later Nahariya.

In the centre of the country, the populations of Ramla on the Jaffa – Jerusalem line and Lydda where this line joined the Haifa – El Kantara main line had large Arab majorities, who blocked Israelis from using railways or roads through this key area. One of the few train movements here after the British withdrawal was in July 1948 when Israeli forces launched Operation Danny to expel the Arab populations of Lydda and Ramla. When the Arab defenders blockaded the railway to help defend Lydda, an Israeli force reportedly used S100 0-6-0T number 21 as a battering ram to breach the fortifications. Although Operation Danny succeeded in forcing at least 50,000 Arab residents to leave Lydda and Ramla, the military situation between Ramla and Jerusalem still prevented the restoration of regular trains on that line until March 1950.

In the south of the country the rail link with Sinai and Egypt was fought over. Israelis ambushed an Egyptian troop train near Rafah, derailing it and inflicting many casualties.

Israeli forces secured nearly all of the Haifa – Ashkelon section of the Haifa – El Kantara main line. However, a short stretch of the Eastern Railway through Tulkarm was held by Jordanian forces and the 1949 Armistice Agreements made this front line part of the Armistice Line between Israeli- and Jordanian-controlled territory. In August 1948, Israel bypassed Tulkarm with a short stretch of new track just west of what was to become the Armistice Line.

The Armistice Line between Israel and Syria left the Haifa – Samakh section of the 1050mm gauge Jezreel Valley line in Israeli-controlled territory. Israel Railways continued using parts of this route on an irregular basis until the early 1950s at which point the entire line was abandoned as it was the only narrow gauge line left in the Israeli network. In 2011–2016 the section between Haifa and Beit She'an was rebuilt in standard gauge along roughly the same route as the Ottoman era one, although the rest of the route along the Jordan River from Beit She'an to Samakh remains dismantled and has not been reopened.

Later implementations of the Pole committee recommendations

The 1935 Pole committee's proposals were eventually realized, in modified form, decades after Palestine Railways' demise. In the early 1950s Israel Railways finally connected Tel Aviv to Haifa using two northern routes: First through a link to the Eastern Railway via the Bnei Brak railway station and later through a new coastal railway to Hadera where it linked up with the existing line to Haifa. These links however served the new Tel Aviv Central Station and were only connected to the Jaffa-Lydda-Jerusalem railway through the Eastern Railway, essentially the same indirect route used by Palestine Railways, until 1993 when the Ayalon Railway was constructed through the center of Tel Aviv. The railway junction in Niana, now called Na'an, was built, but rather than serving a line to Rehovot and Rishon LeZion, it served a rebuilt Railway to Beersheba. In 2013, Israel Railways opened a new rail line to Ashdod via the southern Tel Aviv suburbs of Rishon LeZion and Yavne, followed by an extension of the Lod-Ashkelon railway to Beersheba via Sderot, Netivot and Ofakim two years later, finally creating a southbound rail route that bypasses Lydda (now called Lod).

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)