Palestine Railways (Arabic: سكة حديد فلسطين (“Palestine Railways”); Contemporary Hebrew: (“Palestine (Land of Israel) Railways”)As it appeared in a 1944 timetable or (“Land of Israel Railways”);As it appeared in a 1934 timetable Present-day Hebrew: (“Mandate Railways”)) was a government-owned railway company that ran all public railways in the League of Nations mandate territory of Palestine from 1920 until 1948. Its main line linked El Kantara in Egypt with Haifa. Branches served Jaffa, Jerusalem, Acre and the Jezreel Valley.
Background and predecessors
Jaffa–Jerusalem railway
The Jaffa–Jerusalem railway, funded by Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements, was the first railway to be built in Palestine. Construction started on 31 March 1890 and the line opened on 26 September 1892. It was built to with many tight curves and a ruling gradient of 2% (1 in 50). The eastern part of the line, in the Judean hills between Dayr Aban and Jerusalem, is particularly steep and winding. The "J&J"'s first locomotives were a fleet of five 2-6-0 Mogul tender locomotives from Baldwin in the USA, delivered in 1890 and 1892. On a number of occasions the Baldwins' six-coupled driving wheels either spread the rails or became derailed on tight curves. As traffic increased the J&J obtained four 0-4-4-0 Mallet articulated locomotives from Borsig in Germany, delivered between 1904 and 1914. The Mallets were intended to deliver greater tractive effort without spreading the rails, but they too suffered a number of derailments.
In 1915, during World War I, the Ottoman Army widened the track gauge between Lydda and Jerusalem to to allow through running with the Hejaz Railway and removed the track between Lydda and Jaffa for military use elsewhere.
In 1921, the British Government of Palestine seriously considered electrifying the line. Pinhas Rutenberg, the electricity concessionaire of Palestine, had been backed by High Commissioner Samuel in suggesting that the electrification of the line would not only be profitable but also crucial for the successful electrification of the country as a whole. However the Colonial Office backed off, fearing the heavy costs of this projectShamir, Ronen (2013) Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press
Jezreel Valley railway
This was a branch of the Hejaz Railway between Haifa and Daraa in southern Syria where it joined the Hejaz main line. Construction began at Haifa in 1902 and was completed at Daraa in 1905. The Jezreel Valley line, like the Hejaz main line, was built to . Construction of a branch from Afula on the Jezreel Valley line to Jerusalem had begun in 1908 and reached Nablus by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
Ottoman military railways
The Ottoman Empire needed to supply its forces holding the border of Palestine against British and Empire forces in Egypt. The planned railway from Nablus through hilly country to Jerusalem could not be completed in time, so from 1915 the German railway engineer Heinrich August Meißner oversaw the building of a line westwards from El Mas'udiya to Tulkarm. From Tulkarm the terrain became much easier and a line was built northwards to Hadera and southwards to Lydda where it joined the J&J and later became known as the Eastern Railway. It used the widened J&J track (see above) as far as Wadi Surar where it branched southwards towards the Ottoman front line. By October 1915 the line was operational as far south as Beersheba. A branch was also built from Et Tine just south of Wadi Surar to Deir Seneid, where it branched again to Beit Hanoun and Huj near Gaza. The Ottomans also extended the railway to Beersheba into Sinai as far as Kusseima. Large sections of this line were deliberately targeted and destroyed by British forces in the May 1917 Raid on the Beersheba to Hafir el Auja railway.
Sinai Military Railway The Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) of British and British Empire units was formed in March 1916. It began building the standard gauge Sinai Military Railway from El Kantara on the Suez Canal across Sinai, reaching Romani by May 1916, El Arish in January 1917 and Rafah in March 1917.
The SMR borrowed rolling stock and 70 locomotives from Egyptian State Railways including 20 Robert Stephenson & Co. 0-6-0s, 20 Baldwin 2-6-0s and 15 Baldwin 4-4-0s. The SMR also acquired seven small shunting locomotives: two 0-6-0ST saddle tanks built in 1900 and 1902 that J. Aird & Co. had been using on a civil engineering project in Egypt (probably the Assiut Barrage), four 0-6-0ST's that had been built in 1917 for the Inland Waterways and Docks Department in Britain and one German 0-6-0WT that was part of the cargo of a merchant ship that the Royal Navy captured in 1914. The German locomotive had been built by Hanomag in Hanover in 1913 and all the saddle tanks had been built by Manning Wardle in Leeds, England.
Palestine Military Railway The EEF captured Beersheba in October 1917 and Gaza in November. EEF engineers extended the SMR to Deir Seneid by the end of November 1917 and a branch to Beersheba by May 1918. From Deir Seneid, EEF engineers worked northwards converting the Ottoman tracks to standard gauge, reaching Lydda by February 1918, converting the branch to Jerusalem by June and continuing as far as Tulkarm on the Eastern Railway. From there they built the standard gauge line on a new route northwest to the coast and then northwards, reaching Haifa by the end of 1918.
As the EEF advanced into Palestine it formed a new organisation, the Palestine Military Railway, to operate the various railways of various gauges that came under its control. Royal Engineers units restored Palestine's railways to working condition. The PMR laid a number of temporary narrow gauge lines, including one between Lydda and Jaffa on the J&J trackbed from which the Ottoman army had removed the track in 1915. The PMR borrowed several locomotives to work the narrow gauge tracks, which were a very tight fit.
Operations 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 and even its best trains achieved less than 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.Historical plaque at Ashdod railway station, cited in Rothschild, HaRakevet 18, 1992, page 11 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.
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.Hansard, 17 July 1935 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.
Locomotives
Palestine Military Railway locomotives
For standard gauge use overseas the British Government requisitioned many London and North Western Railway "Coal Engine" 0-6-0s and 50 London and South Western Railway 395 Class 0-6-0s. The British Government sent 42 LNWR and 36 LSWR locomotives to the PMR