Planning a Railroad to Jerusalem: “Professional considerations” + “political considerations” = “an old and slow line”

Abstract

Railroads have provided exciting stories of planning and construction. There has been difficult terrain, dangerous animals, populations opposed to the coming of outsiders, the management of huge workforces, and the raising of huge sums with inflated promises of profit. Recent cases feature sophisticated and competing analysis of costs and benefits, groups concerned with protecting the environment, as well as suspicious populations empowered by democratic provisions for access, mass media, and advocacy groups. The railroad to Jerusalem illustrates both the historic and contemporary sides of these stories. Planning for a new line and the upgrading of the existing line have run into the modern complications of sophisticated economic analyses, demands from localities along competing routes, the conflicting interests of politicians and administrative entities, environmental activists, and considerations of international relations.