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Jezreel Valley railway


The Jezreel Valley railway, or the Valley Train (Hebrew: רכבת העמק‎‎, Rakevet HaEmek ; Arabic: خط سكك حديد مرج بن عامر‎‎) is a railroad that existed in Ottoman and British Palestine, as well as a modern railway in Israel built in the 21st century. It runs from the Mediterranean coast inland along the length of the Jezreel Valley. The historical line was a segment of the longer HaifaDera'a line, which was itself a branch of the larger Hejaz railway.

The historical Haifa–Dera'a line was built at the beginning of the 20th century and connected the Port of Haifa with the main part of the Hejaz railway, the DamascusMedina line. Like the entire Hejaz railway, it was a 1,050 mm (3 ft 5 1132 in) narrow gauge line. The last stop of the Haifa–Dera'a line within the Mandate Palestine borders was at al-Hamma, today Hamat Gader. Planning and construction took four years. The railway was inaugurated on October 15, 1905 and regular services operated on it until 1948.

Despite several renewal attempts, the line lay dismantled for decades until 2011 when construction started on a large-scale project to build a new standard gauge railway from Haifa to Beit She'an along roughly the same route as the historic valley railway.Israel Railways began passenger service on the new valley railway on 16 October 2016.


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