Railway to Beersheba

The main Turkish objective in the Middle East during World War I was to either capture or disable the Suez Canal, which would have put the British Empire at a great disadvantage.

[1] After his assault on the British garrison along the canal in January–February, 1915, Jamal Pasha enlisted the help of the German engineer Heinrich August Meissner, who also planned the Hejaz Railway, to help him find a more efficient method of logistics.

When they captured the old northbound line from Beersheba via Wadi Surar from the Turks, they first converted it to standard gauge by July 1918, then dismantled it entirely in October 1918.

[2] Thus the branch line from Rafah became the only rail connection to Beersheba, with a very infrequent service from Qantara; it, too, was discontinued in July 1927, citing low usage and high maintenance costs.

To alleviate the aforementioned issues, from Q3 2004 to Q2 2012, the entire line from north of Na'an junction to Be'er Sheva Center was double tracked and rebuilt on an improved route with gentler curves in many places, all level crossings replaced by grade separations, and increased station capacity.

[4] This effort faced many bureaucratic challenges and the need for extensive right of way purchases, thus raising land owners' objections, and was further complicated by the requirement for the existing line to stay in use during the works.

The rebuilt line has reduced train delays, enabled many more trains to operate along the route and shortened the travel time from Tel Aviv to Beersheba from over 80 minutes before the works began to about 55 minutes after the project was completed (with the possibility of further reductions in travel time following the line's planned electrification and when faster rolling stock will be added to Israel Railways' fleet in the future).

In 2012, preliminary design began on extending the line southwards through the Arava, in order to provide both passenger and freight service to the Red Sea port city of Eilat, although no funds have been appropriated for construction (which is estimated to cost the equivalent of several billion US dollars), and with the plan also facing strong opposition from environmental groups.