A fortnight summer holiday in the Mediterranean resort of Netanya back in 1988 gave me the opportunity to watch Israel Railways at close quarters .

In those days IR was very much the poor relation in the field of public transport in Israel, the only investment in the previous 15 years having been the purchase of eight Mk 2c carriages from British Rail to upgrade the intercity service along the coast from Tel Aviv to Haifa. Today it is rather different, modernisation has brought new trains, double track and new lines.

Back in 1988 there were 14 trains Sunday to Thursday from Tel Aviv to Haifa and 9 on Fridays, all service finishing well before sun down. No trains ran on the sabbath. All but three of the weekday train stopped at Netanya.

Other than the coastal mainline the only other passenger routes were Haifa to Nahariyya and Haifa to Jerusalem via Benei Berak, the latter consisting of a single train in each direction.

We rode the train to Haifa twice and I took the train to Binyamina. I rather regret now that we didn't take the train to Jerusalem, visiting the city by bus instead.

Apart from the ex-BR Mk 2cs the remaining passenger stock came from three European builders - Orenstein and Koppel, Carl Fouche and Boris Kidric. They were large 90 seat open cars with big picture windows that were great for leaning out of. Trains were pretty quick, the three daily non stops took an hour for the 55 miles from Haifa to Tel Aviv. Signalling was of German origin and included Indusi train control.