Draft:The historical train station of Afula

The train station in Afula was a train station that was operational from the year 1905 until the end of 1951, it's the fourth train station from eight original train station that were built along the branch of the Hejaz railway that is called the Jezreel Valley railway because it crossed Jezreel Valley.

The station was called at the start based on the name of a close small Arab settlement that overtime developed into the city Afula, and that's thanks to the Jezreel Valley railway. The station was announced as a heritage site by the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel.

During World War II, at November 14 1942, a train that departed from Vienna arrived to the Afula Railway Station and passed through Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and Syria and in it a group of Israeli subjects with a British passport that were exchanged by the Nazis with the Templers that were returned by the Brits to Germany. The group included 69 Jews and 45 Brits. The people of the group gave testimonies for the first time about the genocide of Jews by the hands of the Nazis.

During 1945 the station got hit as part of the "Night of the Trains" and the operation of the station was shut down for a while. After the resumption of the station's operation, it continued to serve the passengers of the Jezreel Valley railway until the start of the 1948 Palestine War (Hebrew: מלחמת העצמאות, the War of Independence), at 2 March 1948 that the railway was sabotaged by the Haganah as preparation for the invasion of Arab states.

At 1962 the mayor of Afula Yoash Dubanov and the director-general of Israel Railways Menachem Savidor decided to reopen and resume the operations of Jezreel Valley railway and Afula's train station.

Although the decision, the plan failed and the train didn't resume it's operation in the Valley. On the original railway Afula built a museom at the site of the original station, that commemorates the history of the Jezreel railway.

See also

Afula railway station - the modern railway station of Afula