The 30km electrified line will run from Rishon Le-Zion Moshe Dayan station to Jerusalem Navon on the A1 Link via Rishon Le-Zion Harishonim, Anava and Modi'in. Two new stations will be built at Ramla South and Rishon Le-Zion Rhombus.
The project involves the construction of three tunnels up to 450m in length and 6km of bridges, including a 3.5km-long viaduct between Kiryat Rishon Le-Zion road interchange and Rishon Le-Zion Harishonim, which will be Israel’s longest railway bridge.
The line will run in the median of Highway 431 for much of its length and is therefore designated Line 431.
The line will form the southern section of a 100km loop line surrounding Greater Tel Aviv. The northern section of the loop, which was constructed in the median of Highway 531, opened in July 2018.
The total cost of the Line 431 project is nearly Shekels 3.2bn ($US 910m) and the contract with Electra Infrastructures is worth Shekels 400m.
When it opens in 2026, the line will be served by two trains per direction per hour at peak times, increasing to four trains per hour when the enlargement of Modi'in and Jerusalem Navon stations is completed. Ridership is forecast to reach 15,000 passengers per day when the line is fully operational.
The line will reduce the journey time between Rishon Le-Zion Moshe Dayan and Modi'in from an hour to 30 minutes, while the Rishon Le-Zion Moshe Dayan and Jerusalem Navon trip will be cut from 1h 20min to 45 minutes.
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