Israel Railways CEO Moshe Jana advised Globes transport correspondent Asaf Zagrizak on the Globes Infrastructure for the Future Convention that, “We’re within the midst of railways revolution.”
He defined his phrases by saying that at present there may be an funding of “NIS 67 billion in Israel Railways infrastructure, and with all of the cuts we have now gone by means of, the Minister of Transport and Director Normal of the ministry insisted on not touching a shekel from the railway initiatives. That may be a assertion for my part.”
Jana added that the plan is to “Double the quantity of tracks, in order that by 2040 we’ll have already got 2,600 kilometers of monitor. By way of passengers, we may have 105 million in 2030 and 300 million in 2040. These will not be imaginary numbers, however numbers that we’re a part of the five-year plan. The dream – half-hour gross from Beersheva or Haifa to Tel Aviv”.
The plan: two trains an hour to the Western Negev – from August
Jana additionally addressed the criticism that there’s just one practice per hour on the road serving the Western Negev, which was reopened solely this week: “In a reasonably fast restoration course of after October 7, we managed to open all of the stations, apart from one part that the Southern Command banned from working. We needed to deliver excellent news to the Western Negev, however the Ministry of Protection didn’t enable it. Fortuitously, in the long run it occurred. Certainly, there may be at the moment just one practice per hour on this line, however we’re taking a look at rising it to 2 trains per hour throughout rush hours. After we end electrifying the complete area subsequent August, there might be two trains per hour.”
Concerning the anticipated resolution to put money into the close to future solely in present infrastructure and never in new infrastructure for Israel Railways, he mentioned: “This can be a dangerous resolution for my part. Israel Railways stands on three legs – passengers, freight and infrastructure improvement. Infrastructure improvement is the way forward for the railway and with out it there isn’t any future. A railway venture takes10 to fifteen or 17 years – these are very lengthy processes. If Israel Railways doesn’t do it, for my part it’s much less good. Fortuitously, we have now companions, Netivei Israel, for instance, and collectively we’re engaged on integration and connecting initiatives. Even when there will not be at all times agreements.”
On this context, he additionally responded to rumors that his working relationship with Netivei Israel director common Nissim Peretz is just not good: “Nissim Peretz is a buddy from the military, and all of the rumors are ‘nonsense’. We get alongside properly, generally we disagree and that’s regular. We sit collectively and proceed to debate the way to do good for the State of Israel.”
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Full disclosure: The convention was sponsored by Ackerstein, CAF, Israel Railways, Netivei Israel, and Egged and with the participation of Ashdod Port and Mekorot.
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on February 3, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.