Railway to Eilat

The High-speed railway to Eilat (Med-Red) is a proposed Israeli railway that will enable the connection of the main Israeli population centers and Mediterranean ports to the southern city of Eilat on the Red Sea coast, as well as serve commercial freight between the Mediterranean Sea (city of Ashdod) and Red Sea (Eilat). The railway will spur southward from the existing rail line at Beersheba, and continue through Dimona to the Arava, Ramon Airport and Eilat, at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour (220 mph). Its length will be roughly 260 km of electrified double-track rail (not including the Tel Aviv – Beersheba section, an additional 100 km).

The railway, if built, is expected to serve both passengers and freight, including minerals mined from the Negev Desert. The high-speed passenger service will carry travelers from Tel Aviv to Eilat in two hours or less with one intermediate stop (at the Beersheba North Railway Station), and with a slower service offering from Beersheba to Eilat, stopping at a number of towns and villages in the Arava. The freight service will serve as an alternative to the Suez Canal, allowing countries in Asia to pass goods to Europe through Israel. The line is part of a greater plan to turn Eilat into a metropolitan area numbering 150,000 residents, as well as relocating the Port of Eilat 5 km further inland.

In 2015, the financial newspaper Globes reported that if the project went ahead, it was likely that Chinese contractors would build the train line and infrastructure, and supply the trains and locomotives.

Eilat is located far away from Israel's main population centers, yet serves as an important tourist city and has a strategic location as Israel's only access point to the Red Sea. Historically it has been connected to the rest of the country with poor transportation infrastructure. Both roads to Eilat—Highway 90 and Road 12—have been the scenes of frequent traffic accidents and in some cases terrorist attacks, though in recent years these roads are finally being upgraded.

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