Hi,
Leaving Ben Gurion grave we kept going north on the way home. The next stop was Beer Sheva old train station.
It is part of Mapa and Maza events, were historical sites are opened to the public during Passover vacation. Because those sites are not always friendly for kids, there are shows during this vacation. Unlike Jerusalem and Tel Aviv old train stations, the place did not became a commercial
The train station was built on 1915, as part of WWI Ottoman Empire wish to stop the British campaign to conquer Palestine, and used Beer Sheva as their command center. The plan did not work and the British took hold of Beer Sheva and the rest of Palestine in 1917. After WWI Beer Sheba went back to be a small town and the station was closed on 1927. The British used the station as the governor house later on until 1948 when the British mandate ended.
After used by IDF units as their base, and later on as printing shop nature school the site was declared as historical site in 1991 and on 2013 started to be renovated as historical museum. The water tower of the station is not in site, but hidden between the residential building surrounding the site.
Take Care
Gad
The entrance to Beer Sheva old train station site
The 3 eras the station was used on watch tower in the middle of the square
The terminal – built on 1915 as the station connected to Hejaz railway system. Stone plate with the name Beer Sheba in Arabic are embedded on each side of the building. From 1948 till 1967 the building hosted unit 8200. Today the building hosts a chef restaurant and art gallery.
The toilet building (I do not know of it is the original-renovated one, or complete new one). The sign reads “8th Armored Brigade, under the command of Yitzhak Sadeh on The War of Independence. On 21.10.1948 Beer Sheba, the city of our ancestors, was released from the Egyptian conquers by the 8th and 12th brigades.”
Manager building, used to host the station manager and his family. During the years it was used as nature school of Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel from the 1980s’.
Steam Engine – used by both the Ottoman (who cut down many of Israel natural forests to fuel it) the and British. On 1956 Israel railway reopened the line to Beer Sheba, but it ended in a different station, northern to this one. On 1959 the use of steam engine on Israel railways ended.
The locomotive song by Arik Lavi, telling the story of Locomotive 70414 on his last way from Beer Sheva train station to Haifa to be scrapped, as it been replaced by new diesel locomotive. The station was closed on 1927 and the song is from 1958, meaning it was not this station the song talks about. And this is not locomotive 70414 (that was produced in 1940, worked in the Persian railway company and moved to Israel in 1944), but a locomotive from the same StanierF8 series (kind of an Israeli combina to fit famous song). Some 850 units were produced from this type and only 13 are left, and this is one of those.
Nowdays those are the Diesel locomotives are slowly put a side for the new electrical locomotives.
Time line of the railway to Beer Sheva and south of it.
Freight car
Workshop Car
Lounge Car
The railway is not the original one, but the kind Israel railway uses those days (like in Jezreel valley railway)
Israel-Palestine Railway system between מסילות הרכבת בישראל בין השנים 1890-1914
Israel-Palestine Railway system during WWI מסילות הרכבת בישראל בין במהלך מלחה”ע ה-1
Israel railway system during the years
Out of station stand the monument for the Turkish soldier, for the 298 soldier that fell on Beer Sheba front on WWI. Next to it stands a statue of Mustafa Kemal AtaTurk.
We parked our car on the British Beer Sheva War cemetery