At midnight tonight one of the tunnel-digging machines for the Tel Aviv light rail red line will begin tunneling under the Hashalom railway station in Tel Aviv. The station will be closed for safety reasons starting tomorrow until 5 am Sunday morning. During this period, trains will not run south from Tel Aviv Central Savidor station, and trains will not run north from Tel Aviv Hagana station. People with regular travel tickets for this period will be automatically compensated on the ticketing machines for the days on which the section is closed.
As a result of the closed down section the Jerusalem-Herzliya train will go between Jerusalem and Lod. The frequency of trains on the Hod Hasharon will be reduced, and a special train between Nahariya and Beer Sheva will run on a route bypassing Tel Aviv in both directions. The main part of this route will go directly between Herzliya and Lod.
In an attempt to compensate for the expected disruption, interurban bus service between Tel Aviv and various destinations will be increased, and several special bus lines will operate. Bus No. 777 will provide frequent rides free of charge between the Savidor, Hashalom, and Hagana railway stations in Tel Aviv, and between the Savidor station and Ben Gurion Airport. These buses will leave as soon as they are full, and the next one will be available immediately.
The No. 777 bus will stop at the Heherash terminal at the Hagana station, the stops for Dan No. 20 and 21 buses at the Savidor station, and on Begin Road at the corner of Givat Hatakhmoshet near the Hashalom station. The bus will stop for southbound passengers at southbound stops on Begin Road, and for northbound passengers at the northbound stops near the shopping mall.
The closure of the Hashalom is in addition to a series of disruptions of railway traffic over the past year, some caused by essential infrastructure work and some by malfunctions. In early January, the Tel Aviv University and Herzliya railway stations were closed for four days, including a weekend, in order to facilitate work on railway electrification. As part of the work, the Tel Aviv University, Savidor, and Hashalom stations were shut down for six days in late September. At the end of February this year, the track between western and eastern Yavne and Ashkelon was shut down for rebuilding and upgrading work. At the end of December, one of the two lines near Shefayim was shut down for a week after a locomotive was derailed, and it became necessary to replace the damaged infrastructure and a two-kilometer segment of railway track.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on March 5, 2017
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