Eilat railway increases Chinese, Indian interest in Israel

[LarryKing]

Sorry if its a repost or if I placed it in the wrong sub forum.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: The Eilat railway is of strategic, national, and international importance.
The Eilat Railway will be a passenger railway with a travel time of two hours," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his opening remarks at today's cabinet meeting. "This will also be a line for the shipment of goods from Asia to Europe.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/glob...19780&fid=1725


That's probably one of the greatest things to happen to Israel since 1967.

[cynthia nixon]

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[LarryKing]

I'd buy property in the Red sea town Eilat. Once hundreds of billions worth of goods start passing through it yearly, that's gonna be one hell of exapnsive real estate City.
Rememebr who told you that first, and feel free to send me a finders fee

[Robi_damian]

Originally Posted by LarryKing

Sorry if its a repost or if I placed it in the wrong sub forum.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: The Eilat railway is of strategic, national, and international importance.
The Eilat Railway will be a passenger railway with a travel time of two hours," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his opening remarks at today's cabinet meeting. "This will also be a line for the shipment of goods from Asia to Europe.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/glob...19780&fid=1725


That's probably one of the greatest things to happen to Israel since 1967.

Yeah, I am a bit surprised that they did build it earlier, for example during the Suez blockade up to 1979. It seems like a real opportunity for Israel, especially for the devlopment of the South and for freight traffic.

[LarryKing]

Originally Posted by Robi_damian

Yeah, I am a bit surprised that they did build it earlier, for example during the Suez blockade up to 1979. It seems like a real opportunity for Israel, especially for the devlopment of the South and for freight traffic.

Could have been because of the cold war, and the Commie countries and those that didn't recognize the Jewish state, would have avoided the rail.
Today it is a no brainer. Israel is the faster and secure way to transfer goods and will repalce the Suez canal.

Like I said, lots of money is gonna pass through that place.

[TheCat]

I am not sure how it is faster (I would argue it is significantly slower and less efficient), but strategically important nevertheless.

Consider this:

In 2011, about 39 million TEU of cargo was shipped through the Suez Canal (1 TEU = 1 20-foot container, approximately).

That's about 100,000 TEU per day.

In Israel's case, they will have to unload each ship in Eilat, load the cargo onto the train and transport to some other port (I assume Ashdod or Haifa, or both), and then load it back onto a container vessel to ship to Europe.

Now, the annual capacity of Israel's largest port (Haifa) is about 1.2 million TEU, or only about 3300 TEU per day. The capacity of a typical train is only about 50-100 TEU.

A Suezmax ship (largest ship that can pass through the Suez canal) has a capacity of about 12,000 TEU (that's ~12K containers), even though the typical ship is probably around 5000 TEU. Approximately 50 ships per day can pass through the canal.

Do the math .

Of course, no one is saying that the capacities are even comparable - the Israeli link will be strategically very important for many reasons (including in case the Suez canal is blocked), but this is meant to give some perspective to people who aren't quite familiar with the numbers.

[LarryKing]

^
It takes about 2-3 for ships to cross the canal as is due to high traffic.
Also China may be intrested in Israeli Gas.

Now, the two biggest Israeli gas finds - Leviathan and Tamar - lie off 130 and 80 kilometers from the port city of Haifa. While Leviathan is estimated to hold reserves of 16 tcf of gas, Tamar's reserves amount to at least 8.4 tcf. (Recently, two more gas fields - Sarah and Mira - were discovered off the port city of Hadera further south of Haifa.)

The proposed rail-cum-road links would facilitate transfer of liquefied natural gas from Israel's Mediterranean coast to the Red Sea coast from where they can be shipped across the Indian Ocean to China. Again, the communication link would enhance the scope for China's exports to central and southern Europe and the Balkans.

http://www.asiawind.com/forums/read....66166&t=166166


I don't know what a rail-cum-road is but I'm sure it leads to a happy place.

[TheCat]

I presume "rail-cum-road" means "rail with road" (Latin). I do hope that road-wise, eventually, Israel does build a motorway to Eilat (as opposed to the current unsafe routes).

You do have a good point about gas shipment to Asia, by the way.

The point I wanted to make with my previous post is that the Israeli link replacing the Suez Canal is simply not realistic because the overall capacity of the canal is orders of magnitude higher than anything that can ever be done over land. In fact, the Suez Canal will be undergoing further expansion to support larger ships, even though the ships it currently supports are already very large.

[rheintram]

hopefully no motorway to Eilat and no 2nd international airport either. the negev and arava shouldn't be ruined.

[LarryKing]

Originally Posted by rheintram

hopefully no motorway to Eilat and no 2nd international airport either. the negev and arava shouldn't be ruined.

So why not flatten the existing cities and let nature take them back?

[Robi_damian]

Originally Posted by rheintram

hopefully no motorway to Eilat and no 2nd international airport either. the negev and arava shouldn't be ruined.

I disagree, why have one completely built-up city in the "green" North, and live the desert South as a nature reserve. Israel should move parts of the populaiton South and not destroy the precious little agricultural land up North.

[rheintram]

the 2nd airport is a waste once u can reach Ben Gurion in 2 hours from Eilat and it's right in a huge bird reservation, which would be destroyed forever.

[TheCat]

A single high quality motorway replacing one of the current extremely dangerous routes is not going to destroy the Negev or Arava, but will save lives.

Regarding the airport - to be honest I'm not sure either. I don't think that there really is a need for a 2nd international airport in Israel, but it's possible that it is partly a strategic decision - to have an alternative to TLV if the need arises.

[Urban Legend]

Originally Posted by TheCat

A single high quality motorway replacing one of the current extremely dangerous routes is not going to destroy the Negev or Arava, but will save lives.

Regarding the airport - to be honest I'm not sure either. I don't think that there really is a need for a 2nd international airport in Israel, but it's possible that it is partly a strategic decision - to have an alternative to TLV if the need arises.

The airport inside Eilat is a huge pain in the ass for everybody. It's stuck in the middle of the city.

[Ynhockey]

the 2nd airport is a waste once u can reach Ben Gurion in 2 hours from Eilat and it's right in a huge bird reservation, which would be destroyed forever.

Actually it might be the opposite Ben Gurion not only can't expand, but it also generates severe noise pollution in the center of the country and there are proposals to relocate parts of it. The principle of having just one international airport is also a big problem. Uvda is falling apart, is far from everywhere (even Eilat), and the access road to it is very dangerous.

[rheintram]

The airport in Eilat should be closed. Uvda could be renovated if necessary, that's not more expansive than building an entirely new airport.

Once the railway exists flights from ETH to TLV and SDV will massively decrease. Even inside France, which is huge compared to Israel, domestic flights basically ceased to exist, after the TGV network was established. Air France even thinks about becoming a railway operator on domestic routes.

[Urban Legend]

Well, Israeli rail is on strike every two weeks so... it won't be a problem.

There will always be people who will prefer to fly instead of going on a train. More than that, having both airport and rail to Eilat will make the tickets for planes, buses and trains to Eilat cheaper.

[Ynhockey]

The airport in Eilat should be closed. Uvda could be renovated if necessary, that's not more expansive than building an entirely new airport.

The problem with Uvda isn't only that it's falling apart, but also that it's unreachable. You can't build a good road to Uvda (at a reasonable cost), or a railway, or anything. Also the air force is doing everything to "destroy" the civilian airport at Uvda because they need it for their operations. There's absolutely no reason to keep Uvda, so a new airport that will replace both Uvda and Eilat (exactly what is being planned) is a great idea.

This is not relevant to the airport being planned at Nevatim in the Negev.