Haifa's Carmelit subway, which has been inactive since a fire in February 2017, is scheduled to reopen in September. The Haifa municipality will use the insurance from the fire to pay for the estimated NIS 50 million cost of the subway's renovation.
The first two new carriages of the new Carmelit subway are arriving at Haifa Port today, to be followed by two more next week. The new carriages will be put into the tunnel in early July.
The new Carmelit subway system, built by Swiss corporation Doppelmayr Garaventa Group, will include two trains, each with a pair of 48-seat carriages; counting standing room, the trains can carry 264 passengers each simultaneously - a total of 528 passengers on the two trains.
The Carmelit railway will travel at 28 kilometers per hour on its route from Kikar Paris up to Gan Ha'em and back, making the trip in 10 minutes, including intermediate stops to load and unload passengers.
The new carriages will include passenger information screens displaying the precise location of the train on its route at every moment. The Carmelit subway will be the first vehicle in Israel with an automatic turning off mechanism installed in the passenger carriage.
The complicated process of removing the old carriages from the Carmelit subway took place yesterday at Kikar Paris in lower Haifa. The opening through which they were removed, which was used in the original Carmelit subway, dates from 1959. The two 50-ton carriages were lifted using giant cranes and were loaded onto trucks, which took them to the railway museum.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 26, 2018
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