Welcome to Issue 7. This has been a long time in ... - HaRakevet

6. The new three-road diesel maintenance depot at Dimona was
officially opened with a ceremony on 1/1/90. In attendance was the
Transport Minister, Moshe Katsav, the General Manager of the Ports
and Railways Authority, Shmuel Raziel, and the General Manager of
Israel railways, Eliahu Barak. The tape-cutting ceremony was
performed by Moshe Katsav from the running-plate of GT26CW-2 701,
which then entered one of the bays. Speeches were made, and
participants then partook of a cold buffet lunch.
EILAT OSTRICH FARM. A little while ago I was sent some pictures,
from an Eilat tourist guide, (for 16/6/89), showing a diesel loco
and four wagon bodies at an "Ostrich Farm" near Eilat. Thanks to
others nearer the place, I can say that the loco came from Yuval Gad
at Ashkelon, where it shunted the sidings, and is said to have been
built in Chicago. It is a standard-gauge 4-wheel diesel, bearing the
name "Caterpillar" on the radiator cover. There are no building
details, but one plate bears the legend "Exclusive Export Agents,
Pressed Steel Car Company Inc., "Steelcar" Trade Mark, New York,
USA. , Chicago, London." It is quite tiny for a standard-gauge loco,
and is now painted black with red handrails. The van bodies (looking
like "25Taf" grain vans) are laid out in a curved row, and serve
apparently as buffet, office and storeroom.
Does anyone have any more information?
5. The Saga of T44.
I suppose that "HaRakevet" will be the only place these incidents
are recorded for posterity, so: These are some of the problems.
In June '89, it failed completely in mid-section betwen
Herzliyya and Shefayim with Train 34, due to electrical trouble. It
and the train were hauled to Haifa an hour down, after disrupting a
couple of other trains (one hauled by 701).
In July it failed in mid-section between Hot Carmel and Bat
Galim with Train 36. It took 90 minutes to send out an assisting
loco and clear the section. Trains 56 and 14 had to wait at Hof
Carmel until Train 38 arrived at Bat Galim and Train 55 got away
from there. The failure was serious, again due to an electrical
fault and a burn-out in the traction motors.
On 24/6/69 it was double-heading with a G12 on freight 329 to
Lod, with some 1650 tons, when it failed on the hill between
Binyamina and Hadera West. It had to be dumped on track 3 at
Hadera, the G12 taking the freight onwards, and was towed back to
Haifa on 25/8.
On 14/11 it took Train 23 to Tel Aviv and had just set out on
the return journey to Haifa with Train 26 when two of the four
traction motors failed; it managed to limp back to Haifa on halfpower,
arriving 45 minutes late.
During December ‘89 the loco performed well; clearly the Kalmar
representative had worked hard, and a special ‘link' of loco
drivers was set up to operate T44 (which still has no IR number !).
On 23/1/90 T44, hauling Train 51, began to lose power after
Atlit and failed completely at Zichron Ya'akov. The Binyamina
shunter, 124, was summoned, T44 was dumped on Track 3 at Zichron,
and Train 51 resumed its journey 40 minutes late with 124.
Unconfirmed reports indicate another burnt-out traction motor.
I have received the following description of a ride on T44
from Tel Aviv to Haifa, on 24th. December '69:
"The cab is broad, high and very spacious, and the interior
appointments have been extremely well thought out with crew comfort
very much in mind. A small thing, perhaps, but I particularly
noticed how easy it is to open and close the cab doors - no longer
any need to