| The old Jaffa to Jerusalem railway dates to when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire. It was built by a multi-ethnic consortium in the 1880’s and started service in August 1891. The route is very scenic. From Tel Aviv it crosses the coastal plain as far as Beit Shemesh, and then enters a wadi which winds up through the hills to Jerusalem. On my first trip to Israel in 1974 I took the train up to Jerusalem, and then in 1990 when our whole family spent the summer here, I took the girls to visit friends who lived in Zichron Yaakov via that train line. While the railway was beautiful, it was very slow and prone to problems and in 1998 it was closed. In 2005 the line re-opened but just as far as a new station on the edge of Jerusalem. The part of the line from the new station into the center of town was left derelict, and there were plans to make it into a road. But instead, community lobbying led to it being converted into a rail trail and park, which was built from 2010 to 2013. The trail is 4 miles long, and passes just a few hundred meters from our apartment, where I am typing this. It’s typically full of people running, strolling, and riding bikes, or just sitting on the grassy strip in the middle and enjoying the sunshine. |
| Created on 28 January 2025, updated on 3 March 2025 by Samuel Ethan Fox |
| get together? Michael Carasik |
| Let me know if youd like to get together for coffee or whatever — perhaps at First Station or on Derekh Beit Lehem? |