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Surprising Find in Israel


Jack

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  • 2 weeks later...

The late Paul Cotterell mentions in his comprehensive book  'The Railways of Palestine and Israel' only the BR Mk2C coaches as shown below.

 

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Train approaching Haifa Bat Galim station in August 1990.

 

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The former BR Mk2C coach is obviously much lower than the coach built by Orenstein and Koppel on the left and the coach built by Boris Kidric (Metalka) of former Yugoslavia on the right.

 

Jan den Haan

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  • 5 months later...

The 4 ex-BR Mk.1s and a Mk.2 were brought to Israel in 1989 by a then-popular (since defunct) restaurant/cafes chain, Apropo Ltd. with the goal of sing them as part of new branches. This failed to materialize, and after the chain's collapse they were sold onward, though used for the original purpose. Here is a list of these vehicles

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Below is a picture, taken by the late Paul Cotterell, of the quintet shortly after their arrival here:

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The 8 refurbished Mk. 2Cs purchased by Israel Railways in 1977 were as follows:

681 - M5575

682 - M5580

683 - M5612

684 - M5606

685 - M5567

686 - M5593

687 - M5588

688 - M5570 (preserved in The Israel Railway Museum, Haifa, of which I am the manager)

 

Below is a photo by the late Paul Cotterell from the first official public run, on 28th April 1977.

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Note they were usually not used together but as singles, each attached to a rake of standard IR coaches to provide the local equivalent of 1st class seating as 'Reserved Seating' carriages, offering 2+2 seating instead of the then-prevalent 2+3. 

 

They only had a/c units fitted starting in 1989 (682 never receiving any) and were withdrawn quite early, around 1997 (except 687 which was damaged earlier in a fire), probably due to their being both non-standard and to cracks appearing in their integral bodies - these can be evidenced on 688 in the museum.

 

Any tinting to the windows is strictly for climate control purposes, not for security needs. While there certainly are security concerns in Israel (as in most of the world these days), they are usually dealt with by prevention, e.g. intelligence, patrolling etc.

 

 

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A contact of mine on Flickr saw this thread and asked me to reply as he knows a bit about it.  Confirming what has already been written above, he writes :

 

"Back in the late seventies, ISR bought a handful (eight in total) of Mk IIc coaches from British Rail, in an attempt to offer an improved service on the Haifa - Tel Aviv main line. The coaches were all equipped with dark windows, due to the intense sunlight in Israel. It was a well-intentioned attempt to provide the passengers, inside the coach, with a comfortable environment, but with hardly any ventilation and a tiny hatch at the top of each window, on top of the infernally hot Israeli summer, it soon became clear that "the Brits" were climatically unfit for service in Israel. ISR kept using them well into the nineties, and even had them fitted out with roof-mounted airconditioners, which must have been a huge relief for both passengers and crew.

The following link will offer more details about ISR's ex-BR coaches:

www.angelfire.com/my/railnews/rolling/coachlist_e_3.html

It is also worth mentioning that a few other ex-BR coaches found their way to Israel over the years, though this has absolutely nothing to do with ISR whatsoever. The coach near Jericho, off the main road across the Jordan Valley, was purchased decades ago by some restaurant owner in the area. Another coach was last seen in the sand dunes near Caesarea, halfway between Haifa and Tel Aviv."

 

He has lots of interesting pictures on Flickr and if anyone would like to have look you'll find them here :

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124446949@N06/albums/

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