Ex-workers slam Tel Aviv-Jerusalem fast train as ‘experiment with human lives’
Citing numerous safety failures, senior employees warn that thousands of Israelis are in danger due to government inaction
Michael Bachner is a news editor at The Times of Israel
Three former senior employees in the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem fast train project have spoken out to warn of numerous safety failures that make the new, highly publicized route an “experiment with human lives” that endangers its passengers.
“It’s all completely haphazard, just for populism,” one of them charged in an interview with Channel 10 news, implying that the blame lies with Transportation Minister Israel Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have peddled the project as a landmark achievement.
The train opened at the end of September after years of delays, with promises of bringing relief to passengers who previously had to endure a ride between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that could take as long as two hours each way on peak traffic hours.
But the new route from Jerusalem currently goes only as far as Ben Gurion Airport, with the line only expected to be extended to Tel Aviv in several months.
Since its launch, numerous trains have been delayed and canceled due to technical issues, and some have gotten stuck in tunnels for hours at a time. Months of glitches and malfunctions have brought on public criticism that says the line may have been launched before it was fully ready.
In addition, due to a lack of available carriages and electric engines for these trains, some have been taken away from other routes, in particular the coastal line — which had to reduce its regular service of four trains an hour to three, leading to overcrowded carriages.
In a report aired Saturday, the three workers said they had all been fired for speaking out and refusing to overlook the safety issues.
“I was told to shut up: ‘You’ll see stuff, don’t talk,'” said Eran Zafolio, who was a foreman in the project employed by Spanish company Semi.
Zafolio said he had been warning — to no avail — about vehicles with no working brakes and unlicensed train operators.
He said that on one occasion, a train carrying hundreds of passengers came within centimeters of crashing into a work vehicle that had veered off its track due to faulty brakes. He said the two vehicles were just 40 centimeters (16 inches) from a crash that could have resulted in a mass tragedy.
Zafolio also showed photos he took of a vehicle that burned down and wasn’t equipped with fire extinguishers, and of employees dealing unsafely with electricity lines.
"ניסוי בחיי אדם": המחדלים החמורים שמסכנים את נוסעי הרכבת • @AviAmit26 עם כתבת "המפצח" מתוך "המגזין" עם @KotlerOshrat >> https://t.co/Wd1lDGdlOJ pic.twitter.com/KG2HV29IBs
— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) December 1, 2018
Another former employee who spoke out was Victor Udarov, a safety supervisor who also worked for Semi until he was fired.
Having engineered railways in the Soviet Union, Udarov said he was appalled by the condition of some of the work vehicles laying the electricity lines along the tracks. He said some of them had steering failures, and in some their speedometers weren’t functional and they were moving at as much as three times the recommended speed.
He said he witnessed many safety violations, including employees working without safety vests and helmets. “There’s nobody qualified and professional. That’s why I’m afraid to take this train — I saw how it was built,” he lamented.
The third ex-employee, veteran construction engineer Shai Waksman, who had worked on the project since 2012 for the Israeli company Baran, warned that the electricity for the project was set up haphazardly, without a control center linking it to the national power grid.
“There is no electricity according to the plan; there is improvised electricity. It’s all completely haphazard, just for populism,” he told Channel 10.
He said Israeli regulations required testing the radiation from the electrified tracks to make sure it is safe, but no such test had been conducted and subsequently, the track — on which thousands of Israelis now ride every day — is in fact illegal.
Waksman said he had written a letter about the various failures to the Prime Minister’s Office, which had opted to take no action.
“They let it slide somehow,” he said. “It’s a scandal for a national project. Nobody is willing to listen. What’s being done on these tracks, with all the mishaps, is an experiment with human lives.”
Zafolio and Waksman have written a letter to State Comptroller Yosef Shapira, who has initiated an urgent probe, the report said.
Israel Railways responded by saying that the route was “compatible with all the rigorous safety standards and was approved by supervision bodies abroad and by rescue bodies in Israel.”
The state company added that it “checked the allegations with a special committee and found them to be baseless.”
The project was conceived in 2001, at an estimated cost of around NIS 3.5 billion ($978 million). Works began in 2005, only to be halted by environmentalist opposition until 2009. Tunneling recommenced in 2012. The final cost has amounted to around NIS 6.5 billion ($1.8 billion).
Raoul Wootliff and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
