Railways in Palestine in the Ottoman and Mandate periods

 

A discussion of railways would seem a rather tedious subject. However, they were of considerable importance in the Zionist projects of developing Jerusalem and settlement in the Jezreel Valley in the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods — even though facilitating the Zionist project was not their primary intention.

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The first railway line constructed in Palestine was the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway. It was built and financed by a Jewish French company in 1892, and its 86 kilometers linked Jaffa and Jerusalem. It provided a speedier and more convenient way to reach Jerusalem, especially for pilgrims, and led to further development of Jerusalem.

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The Jezreel Valley Rail was a branch of the Hejaz Railway. This was built by the Ottomans between 1900 to 1908 and connected Damascus to Medina. This was an important project for the Ottomans in facilitating Hajj pilgrimages to Mecca and strengthening Ottoman political control over the Arabian Peninsula. An important branch of the Hejaz Railway was the Dera’a-Haifa Railway, or Jezreel Valley Railway. which connected Haifa to the Hejaz line at Dera’a in Syria. This linked Palestine more closely into the Ottoman Empire and increased the importance of Haifa port.

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Construction of the Jezreel Valley Railway began in 1903 and was built by the German engineer Heinrich August Meissner, the chief engineer of the Hejaz Railway. It was an impressive engineering feat, in that the railway descended into the Jordan Valley and ascended from there to the Golan Heights. It was completed in two years, and passed through Kfar Yehoshua, Afula, Beit She’an, and the Jordan Valley.

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Although run by the Ottomans as an Ottoman imperial project, and then by the British, the railway had a very significant effect on the Zionist development of northern Palestine. It transformed the agricultural economy of the Jezreel Valley by providing inexpensive transportation of agricultural produce to Haifa and it facilitated the development of agricultural settlements along the valley.

One of the negatives of this railway was that the Ottomans increasingly used wood and charcoal for the train engines because of a wartime shortage of coal, and this contributed to extensive deforestation in Palestine. Approximately 500 dunams (50 hectares) of oaks were cut down in the Tuv’on Hills.

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In the Night of the Bridges campaign in 1946 during the Mandate period, the bridge across of the Yarmouk River was blown up. Because of road transport, the strategic importance of the railway declined, and service on the Haifa-Samakh section was closed in 1951.  The remnants of this railway now have only historic and nostalgic importance.

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However, the story has an interesting modern epilogue. A modern line from Haifa to Beit She’an was opened in October 16 2016. It is a single line and follows roughly the path of the old railway. In addition to its passenger service, it also carries freight from Jordan to Haifa Port, as Jordan has no access otherwise to the Mediterranean Sea.