Ideas and plans to construct a railroad in northern Palestine in the late Ottoman period

The article describes and probes the initial experiments in laying railroad tracks in northern Palestine during the second half of the nineteenth century and presents the construction phases of Haifa Station. Considering the period, the intentions of the various railroad planners exhibited outstanding vision. Even though the first trials failed, they remained determined and, above all, they succeeded in proving that railway projects were feasible. For this reason the Jezreel Valley railway project was considered a tremendous achievement for that period. The station built in Haifa, the largest and most important of the stations, became an impressive and representative symbol of a project of imperial scale.