Newspaper economic sections will yet hark back to the glories of Mother Turkey’s valley railroad. They will trace the precise route of the railway inaugurated in 1914 between Jaffa and Ramla by Zionist leader Nahum Sokolov, and of the now derelict line that once carried passengers through Moshav Rinatiya to Jerusalem. They will wax nostalgic over the tracks that once graced central Tel-Aviv. Not that trains are about to run on those tracks, or what is left of them. Local trains will evidently continue to chug along, battery-powered, only in children’s playrooms. The lessons of history will be marshalled for the sole purpose of promoting Israel Railways’ plan to roll down the communications track.
Israel Railway, an afterthought of the Ports and Railways Authority, due to be transferred, at some point, to the Ministry of National Infrastructures, never was a real railway company.
When real estate was all the rage, Israel Railways tried to pass itself off as a real estate company. Even in the distant past, it was leasing to various developers land tracts it obtained from the State of Israel near Ramat Gan’s Ayalon Mall, only it forgot to make sure of a realistic rent. Now that bandwidth is the name of the game, Israel Railway is trying to obtain an ‘independent communications operator’ license from the Ministry of Communications.
According to Israel Railway executives, optic fibres running alongside active railway lines can be used for Internet and local calls. What, on the face of it, could make more sense than to utilise existing communications lines?
Once licensed as an ‘independent communications operator’, Israel Railways will start planning to lay optic fibres alongside inactive tracks. It will seek to sell usage rights in land tracts obtained free of charge from the State for the purpose of running trains for the public benefit. We will go on being stuck in the same old traffic jams, dreaming of light mass transportation systems, of underground trains, trams, suburban and local railroads. No use expecting Israel Railways to do anything about it. Its executives will be busy travelling to other countries, to learn from the communications experience of US, Belgian, French, and Spanish railway companies.
If they wish to save themselves the price of a flight ticket, the executives can board the fast train between Brussels and Paris. At the ticket booth, they can pick up various brochures, giving estimates of the success of the new line, its passenger count and public satisfaction surveys. Should some peripatetic Israeli happen to strike up a conversation, he might remind them that, in the years when the Europeans were laying the Paris-Brussels fast track, Israel Railways bestirred itself to do no more than streamline the Tel-Aviv-Haifa line.
The Israeli will make his way to the buffet, while the executives assure themselves, once more, that it was all the government’s fault for not allocating budgets; and they’ll ask the waiter for another cup of that delicious coffee dispensed by the espresso machines in first class. Back in Israel, they’ll sing the praises of the Europeans and go for another round of arm-wrestling with Israel Land Administration.
The ILA will maintain that a railway is not entitled to sell usage rights in State lands given to the railway company for just one purpose. Israel Railways will argue that the ILA is profiteering in the lands and not enabling them to amass sufficient cash to operate the trains. The ILA will retort that Israel Railways should give it back the relevant lands so that it can publish tenders for laying communication lines. To which the comeback will be that no government corporation ever gave land back to the ILA, even though many overstepped the bounds of their original agreements. Lawyers will come and go, writing prestigious and costly opinions for their clients, and give expression to lofty thoughts, while explaining, for the benefit of any sceptics who would remind them that Israel Railways is supposed to run trains, that they have simply failed to grasp the finer nuances.
The Prime Minister will intervene, a compromise will be reached. Part of the land occupied by inactive tracks will be restored to the ILA while Israel Railways retains part. Somewhere along the line everyone will forget why it is that the public has no more than a dim recollection of how a train goes.
Published by Israel's Business Arena July 5, 1999