ANT KATZ

Swoosh!

the country’s high-speed rail line that is currently being built between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and will open for service in 2018, will cut travel time between the cities to under half an hour (including stopping at Ben-Gurion) and will run eight trains an hour.

The country’s most expensive infrastructure project ever has required incredible feats of engineering, boring tunnels and building bridges – and even being held up after some major archaeological finds.

RIGHT: An artist impression of the new high-speed train

Israel Hayom reported today, Monday, that Israel Railways’ CEO, Boaz Tzafrir, made the promise of a 2018 opening to a group of Knesset members who were touring the ongoing construction work.Trains will make an intermediary stop at Ben-Gurion International Airport. The maximum speed on the new line will be 160 km per hour.

Tzafrir said the total cost of the project will reach $1,82 billion. The project requires the construction of six tunnels and eight bridges along the course of the line.

It currently takes around an hour and 15 minutes to travel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem by train on the old line built during the Ottoman era in the late 19th century.

The most complicated and expensive civil engineering job in the country’s history required the construction of six tunnels and eight bridges along the course of the line