Construction

The idea to build a railway linking the coast with Jerusalem was first raised in the middle of the 19th century by Dr. Conrad Schick, Sir Moses Montefiore and others. The franchise for laying the railway was obtained from the Ottoman government by Joseph Navon, but due financial difficulties, he had to sell the franchise to a French company which was set up to build the line – the Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements.^[1]

The groundbreaking ceremony took place on March 31, 1890. The track was chosen to be of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge, similar to French minor railways, and was brought in from France and the Belgian manufacturer Angleur.^[2] A short 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge section, as well as a meter gauge section with a pier, was laid between the Port of Jaffa and the Jaffa Station to easily transport materials from the harbor to the railway.^[2]

The first test run was made on the railway in October 1890, an event that was attended by some 10,000 onlookers—more than half of the population of Jaffa. The locomotive was a Baldwin 2-6-0, one of the first three built for the line, and carried the American and French flags.^[3] The section between Jaffa and Ramla railway station was fully opened to the public on May 24, 1891, and a further section to Dayr Aban was opened on December 4 of the same year.^[4] The stations were built just a short time before the track was laid in their respective areas. In Jaffa and Jerusalem, the French railway company sought to build the stations as close as possible to the old cities, while the Ottoman authorities prevented them from doing so, resulting the terminuses' relative distance (for the time) from the city centers. Despite this, the land that the stations were built on was purchased at very high prices by the railway company.^[4] The station in Jaffa was built in immediate vicinity of the German Templer colony, and even named Sarona Station on a British map from the late 1910s, to distinguish from a Jaffa Station at the seafront, the terminus of a short narrow-gauge extension.^[5]

In 1892, construction of the whole line from Jaffa to Jerusalem was completed. The length of the journey was approximately 3.5–4 hours,^[6] about equal to the same trip on a carriage, and contrary to the original plan, which envisioned a 2-hour trip. Even so, Yosef Navon was granted several high-profile awards for his efforts, and the opening event received extensive media coverage worldwide.^[7]

World War I

During World War I, the railway was taken over by the Turkish and German armies, which adapted it to serve their needs.^[8] While the Jaffa railway station served as a military headquarters during the war, the Ottomans did not want to expose the railway itself to British naval bombardment. In early 1915, most of the heavy machinery and equipment was moved to Jerusalem, and later in the same year the Jaffa–Lydda section was completely dismantled. Its rails and sleepers were used in the construction of the Railway to Beersheba.

When the British advanced northwards in November 1917, the railway was sabotaged by the retreating Turkish army and most (five) of its bridges were blown up.^[9][10] The Turks carried away anything that was movable, from railway cars and wooden rails to parts of the stations.^[8]