The Jaffa–Jerusalem railway (also J & J) is a railway that connected Jaffa and Jerusalem. The line was built in the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem (Ottoman Syria) by the French company Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements and inaugurated in 1892. The project was headed by Joseph Navon, an Ottoman Jewish entrepreneur from Jerusalem, after previous attempts by the British-Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore failed. It is the second railway inaugurated in the Middle East after the İzmir–Aydın Railway, which opened in 1856.
The railway was originally built in , later rebuilt to and then to . The line was operated by the French, the Ottomans and after World War I, the British. After its closure in 1948, it was re-opened by Israel Railways in 1949 as the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem railway, although since 2019 this designation is instead used to refer to the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem railway – an electrified dual-track railway line constructed during the 21st century that employs extensive bridging and tunneling along a faster, more direct route between the two cities.
History
Early proposals Sir Moses Montefiore spoke of establishing a railway between Jaffa and Jerusalem in 1838. He met with Culling Eardley, who was also interested in the project, but stated that he would not be part of it if religious institutions would be involved. In 1856, he contacted the British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, and discussed the construction of a railway. Temple supported the plan, commenting that it would benefit both Britain and Turkey. A meeting was organized with the Ottoman Grand Vizier Aali Pasha upon his visit to London on May 20, 1856, where an agreement on the principles was signed. As a result, Laurence Oliphant, an author and businessman who became a Member of Parliament in 1865, also put his force behind the project. On December 8, 1856, Count Paweł Strzelecki, also involved in the project, sent a message from Istanbul that the Ottoman government was not willing to provide land for the construction, and the project withered.
In 1856, General Francis Rawdon Chesney traveled to Palestine to survey the land for a railway in the company of Sir John McNeil, a railway expert. After examining two possible routes, he deemed a rail line to Jerusalem too expensive, estimating construction costs at 4,000–4,500 pounds per kilometer. McNeil then proposed a short line from Jaffa to Lydda only, and a macadam road from there to Jerusalem (which would cost only 150 pounds per kilometer). Chesney did not give up, contacting Sir Arthur Slade, a general in the Ottoman army, who supported the plan for a railway in what is today Iraq. Slade opposed a Jaffa–Jerusalem line, which he believed would benefit England and be against Turkey's interests. Although Montefiore was involved in it, nothing came of Chesney's initiative. According to another account, Montefiore backed out of the project when Culling Eardley reiterated during a meeting that the railway would serve Christian missionary activity.
On his fifth visit to the Holy Land in 1857, Montefiore brought with him a British railway engineer who proposed the construction of the railway along the Refa'im Stream, to reduce construction costs and to allow the railway to be close to a source of water. He lost interest in the project in 1862, however, when his wife died on Rosh HaShana. In 1864, the German-American engineer Charles Frederick Zimpel proposed building several railways in the Syrian province (including Palestine) to the Ottoman authorities, that would allow the start of construction if Zimpel would be able to gather the necessary funds within half a year. In 1865 Zimpel published a pamphlet with his own survey of the region, including a French-language map of the planned route, which was very similar to the route used today. The main differences were two sections near Jaffa and Ramla, changed from the original plan for convenience, that lengthened the line by about 6.5 km. Zimpel spent a year in Constantinople attempting to gain a concession for the railway's construction, to no avail.
The German architect and city engineer Conrad Schick, a Jerusalem resident, later published a similar booklet, where he also detailed his own proposal for a railway, which called for a line through Ramallah and Beit Horon. A route along the lines of Schick's plan was for a long time considered the most viable, and French engineers conducted an extensive survey to that end in 1874–75. The concept of a railway to Jerusalem was also thought of by the American writer James T. Barclay; he envisioned a line from el-Arish, Askalon or Gaza. Another proposal was made by the engineer Humann, who surveyed the area suggested in 1864 that it would be wise to create a railway to Jerusalem.
Because of perceived British interest in the project, France and Austro-Hungary also became interested. The Ottoman Empire rejected Montefiore's plan on the assumption that it would mainly serve Christian missionary interests. Nevertheless, the local press reported on the proposed railway in 1872 and praised the Turkish Sultan for his efforts to promote its construction. The original failure of the Western powers to construct the railway is attributed to the unwillingness of the respective Western governments to allocate funds for the project, despite their political interest.
Financing The man principally responsible for actually constructing the railroad was Yosef Navon, a Jewish entrepreneur from Jerusalem. Navon began to investigate the possibility of constructing a railway in 1885. His advantage over earlier proposers of a railway was that as an Ottoman subject. Navon's chief partners and endorsers included his cousin Joseph Amzalak, the Greek Lebanese engineer George Franjieh, and the Swiss Protestant banker Johannes Frutiger.
Navon spent three years in Constantinople to promote the project and obtain a permit from the Ottoman Empire. On October 28, 1888, he received a 71-year concession (firman) from the Ottoman authorities that also gave him permission to extend the line to Gaza and Nablus. He also paid 5,000 Turkish lira to the Ottomans, and agreed to receive no financial guarantees. Lacking the capital to proceed, Navon went to Europe in 1889 to find a buyer for the concession, and failed to do so both in England and Germany. Bernard Camille Collas, a French lighthouse inspector, bought it for a million francs (40,000 pounds). On December 29, 1889, the Jaffa to Jerusalem Railway Company (Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements) was founded in Paris with Collas as the first director. The total share capital was four million francs in 8,000 shares.
Navon sat on the board of directors, which mostly consisted of French investors. The company raised 14 million francs, of them 9,795,000 francs (390,000 pounds) from Christian religious followers. Construction was carried out by the Parisian Company for Public Works and Construction (Société des Travaux Publiques et Constructions), at a cost of 10 million francs (400,000 pounds), and was to be completed by April 1, 1893. Gerold Eberhard, from Switzerland, was selected to be the chief engineer for the project.
While the railway was considered a rare collaboration between Jews, Catholics and Protestants (J. Frutiger), Jewish publications expressed concerns that the line was not serving Jewish interests. A prominent European Jew, H. Guedella, wrote in The Jewish Chronicle that the line was funded by "extreme orthodox Catholics", and the Hebrew newspaper Havatzelet reported a disappointment that no Jewish backers for the line had been found. When the project ran out of money, Navon secured more funds from investors in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. However, by 1892 the line's shares dropped below their nominal value. He tried to raise more funds, including from Theodor Herzl, although the latter was not interested and wrote that it was a "wretched little line from Jaffa to Jerusalem [which] was of course quite inadequate for our needs."
Construction
The groundbreaking ceremony took place on March 31, 1890, in Yazur, attended by the governor of Palestine, Ibrahim Hakkı Pasha, the Grand Mufti of Gaza, Navon, Frutiger, etc. The track was chosen to be of , similarly to French minor railways, and was brought in from France and the Belgian manufacturer Angleur. According to the New York Times, the materials for the railroad, as well as the rolling stock, were bought from the Panama Canal Company owned by Ferdinand de Lesseps, although the stamps on the rails suggest that they were created in Belgium, which, according to Anthony S. Travis, disproves the Panama Canal theory. A short gauge section, as well as a meter gauge section with a pier, was laid between the Port of Jaffa and the Jaffa Station to easily transport materials from the harbor to the railway.
Engineers were brought from Switzerland, Poland, Italy and Austria, while construction workers were brought mostly from Egypt, Sudan and Algiers. Native Palestinian Arabs were also heavily involved in the work, although many were farmers and worked only during certain seasons. Stonemasons from Bethlehem and Beit Jala helped construction in the Judean hills. Despite receiving medical treatment, a considerable number of workers died of malaria, scurvy, dysentery and other diseases. More died of construction accidents, including the process of cutting through rocks on the approach to Jerusalem. Numerous bridges were built along the line. The shorter ones were of stone, while six of the seven longer ones were iron, supplied by the Eiffel company. Water for the railway's operation was taken from wells in Jaffa, Ramla and Bittir, and a spring at Sejed. Bittir also supplied the Jerusalem station with water.
The first test run was made on the railway in October 1890, an event that was attended by some 10,000 onlookers—more than half of the population of Jaffa. The locomotive was a Baldwin 2-6-0, one of the first three built for the line, and carried the American and French flags. The Jaffa–Ramla section was fully opened to the public on May 24, 1891, and a further section to Dayr Aban was opened on December 4 of the same year. In Jaffa and Jerusalem, the French railway company sought to build the stations as close as possible to the old cities, while the Ottoman authorities prevented them from doing so, resulting the terminuses' relative distance (for the time) from the city centers. Despite this, the land that the stations were built on was purchased at very high prices by the railway company.
The first train reached Jerusalem on August 21, but the tracks immediately near the station had not yet been completed. The first passenger trip between the Jaffa and Jerusalem stations took place on August 27. Building the railway was a very ambitious undertaking under local conditions. Hundreds of tons of rails were brought from Belgium, coal from Britain and rolling stock from France. Unloading these materials in Jaffa's primitive harbor was an immense challenge. A report in Railway Magazine of 1902 said:
Vale also wrote that the sleepers were made of oak, laid 50 cm apart, and were 22 cm-wide. The rails weighed 20 kilograms per meter and were fastened to the sleepers with spikes.
1892–1914
The line officially opened on September 26, 1892. The length of the journey was approximately 3.5–6 hours, about equal to the same trip on a carriage, and contrary to the original plan, which envisioned a 3-hour trip. Even so, the opening event received media coverage worldwide. Yosef Navon, who had already been awarded the French Legion of Honor for his involvement in the railway, received a Turkish medal, and in 1895 or 1896—the title of Bey.