Roller coaster: The CEO of Israel Railways talks about the three long years of his life

"At Rabbi Kanievsky's funeral we were on the verge of disaster," a day before the merriment in Meron and a year after the disaster, the train's director general talks about the moment when, against all forecasts, the small Bnei Brak station was flooded with crowds. At 250 km / h

Keenan Cohen

17/05/2022

Tuesday, 17 May 2022, 17:25 Updated: 18:05

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Micha Meiksner (58), CEO of the railway, said he gave up a lot of money and options in the civilian market when he chose to accept his current position. He is an engineer by training and has a long industrial resume Industries and more but none of these prepared him for what he found on the train when he was appointed to the position in 2019. . Recruitment, etc. Examples of the consequences of this situation are not lacking, starting with train systems that are stopped after a short trip and disabled due to a malfunction,Water leaks that reveal that the roofs of the carriages are rotten and require replacement, the dilapidated condition of the stations "At the Rehovot station the situation was so bad that trains entered at zero speed so as not to produce vibrations that would further damage the station structure".

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In renovations.

When does the train return to full activity in your area (Photo: Flash 90, Hadas Porush / Flash 90)

No culprits, just poor people

Then came the corona, for most industries, a fatal economic blow - but by train they saw an opportunity - this means of transport whose use skyrocketed, from 12 million passengers a year in the early 2000s to about 70 million in 2019 - see the forced cessation of use This is an opportunity for Paz to move forward with the electrification project of the tracks, along with a series of engineering improvements at train stations throughout the country.

And changes have been made, gaps have been reduced, but not without a price - and this price is paid by passengers on the most important and busiest line of the Haifa-Tel Aviv line, whose activity is disrupted even after the train returns to activity in June 2020.

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And this time it seems that there are no culprits or right in this situation, at least not those to whom a finger can be pointed and are currently in key positions.

The electrification project is a necessity for the train and its need has been known since the early 2000s.

But dragging feet, power struggles and just plain folly in the Land of Israel stuck it to a point where the diesel train system had already reached a level of wear and tear that repeated mishaps had become inevitable.

On the other hand, the structure of the tracks in Israel is very thin, in contrast to road works, in which traffic can be diverted to parallel axes, the train does not have a "bypass track".

Which forces to work in a world unfamiliar, operating the line during the day, and closing it for night and weekend work.

The price - disruptions that have been going on for more than two years and are expected to be completed only into 2023 when the electrification project of the track is completed.

Micha Meiksner, CEO of the railway, "Every year in this position is equal to 7 regular years" (Photo: Shabtai Tal)

The Ministry of Transportation is gone

In the end, even if the disruptions can be explained, to passengers who find themselves without a transportation or security solution the train - a symbol of accuracy and reliability in the Western world - will indeed arrive today, tomorrow or in a week and bring them home and work and the basis for They are very small comforts.

The train, which for years had concentrated so much power in its hands and operated as an independent and almost unsupervised body, discovered that when public anger is directed - it is directed directly at it.

But interestingly, although over the years all transport ministers have made sure to get to every opening of a railway line, a new station or laying a track in a new lane - when the train is absorbing fire - they are in no hurry to line up.

I ask Micha does this disappearance of the Ministry of Transportation once there is criticism not bother him?

"The criticism leveled at us is good for us," he says. "I do not want to engage in the backing of the Ministry of Transport. At the technical level, the Ministry of Transportation provides us with the necessary assistance. We can withstand the criticism."

And he is confident not only in his stand in the face of public criticism, but also in his ability to deal with the sanctions of the railway workers' committees, those whose controversy has already led to delays in training new locomotive drivers.

Meiksner, however, insists that the committee's sanctions and disputes do not interfere with the train's day-to-day work.

Bnei Brak train station, tens of thousands of passengers in 3 hours (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"On the verge of disaster" accompanied by Rabbi Kanievsky

The train director's meeting with the media was held two days before the celebration of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Lag B'Omer.

The one that will probably stand for many years in the shadow of the disaster last year in which 45 mountain climbers were killed due to the congestion and overcrowding.

And in the midst of all this disaster, the one that functioned with all due praise was the train, which from the very beginning of the event realized that the pace of evacuation from the mountain of tens of thousands of celebrants must not reach the "bottleneck" at Carmiel station.

Workers were hopped out of the house in the dead of night, trains were pulled from driveways to other lines, service was stepped up at stations and trains formed in a moving film and in the "full and go" method.

When I asked him what we would learn on the train from that event and how they are preparing for Lag B'Omer this year, the CEO says that under the guidance of the Israel Railways, the train will not operate special lines to Carmiel.

This is due to the police's desire to control the amount arriving by bus.

However, the train still puts no less than 17 trains on standby in each case.

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A reminder of the ease with which such an event could get out of hand was received by train at Rabbi Kanievsky's funeral in March this year.

According to police forecasts, the movement of participants at the funeral was expected to be through Tel Aviv or Petah Tikva stations, not through the small Bnei Brak station, but already at 14:00 after the funeral people began to flow to the station, when at 14:30 the traffic was so heavy on the platforms There was a real fear that any slight push would result in dozens of passengers falling onto the tracks.

As a lesson from the Meron events, one of the train schedules was changed and as many arrays as possible were routed to the station.

These made it possible to take out a number of passengers on an estimated train of between 30,000 and 40,000 in a time span of 3 hours.

"Urban caravan", another 30 passengers and the possibility of raising bicycles and electric scooters (Photo: Keinan Cohen)

Haifa Tel Aviv in half an hour

And although today the train finds it difficult to offer a service that has long been common in the world like wireless internet, its vision goes far beyond seeing problems that bother most passengers.

So by train they promise to overcome the internet interest and that within a year we can travel and surf the wireless internet in the new carriages.

By the way, new carriages, some of which are defined as "urban carriages" in which the seating arrangement is of two rows of seats adjacent to the caravan wall and in the middle of a standing space have already entered service and are supposed to increase the number of passengers in each caravan by 30 as well as facilitate entry Bicycles, luggage and more.

The train also says that in 2025 they expect 105 million passengers a year to use the train.

Upon completion of the connection of the parallel track to Road 431 in 2027, which will connect Rishon Lezion to Jerusalem with a track that will pass through Modi'in and in 2030 we will also get to see the ultra-fast trains that are supposed to reach 250 km / h (instead of 160 maximum today).

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The presentation absorbs everything, and on paper the plans, numbers and huge investment planned for the train bring cautious optimism, how much it convinces the passengers who must finish their work day in Tel Aviv early so as not to get stuck without a train, the mother hoping to get to lunch if the train is not canceled this time or The soldier who was hit by the five because of the low frequency of trains on the western Negev line?

Probably not really.

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