First Middle East Railway Mystery Cache

Recommended preparations

• Take a measurement tool that can measure at least 2m
• Take something to take notes of the clues you find
• Take with you the full description, including waypoints
• Calculator may be useful
• Read well the description and see everything is clear
• Learn how to measure distance with your GPSr.

This railway was connecting the two largest cities in Israel - Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv-Jaffa. It is considered the first railway in the Middle-East, first opened in 1892.

Since it was opened, the railway was always considered too slow. On its first years, it took 4-6 hours from Jaffa to Jerusalem. On 1934 it was published that the travel time will be shortened from 3:13 hours to 2:35. Except for some breaks during the wars, the railway continued to operate until 1998, but the travel time remained above 2 hours, while doing the same way by car or by bus was under 1 hour. The train was almost empty, until the line was canceled on 1998. The line was reopened on 2005, after a massive repair of the old route and straightening all the curves by digging numerous long tunnels along the route. However, the travel time remains long, about 1 hour and half and the train continues to travel almost empty. This new line arrives to Malha and not continues to the old Jerusalem station in the German Colony. This leaves an unused section of the historic railway, where this cache is hidden.

A modern railway from Jerusalem to Tel -Aviv is expected to open in 2015. The new railway is expected to make it in only 28 minutes.

Many jokes were told about this line and its slow speed. It was told that signs were put in the train: "don't pick up flowers". A man walked near the train and the conductor offered him to get up on the train. He answered: "No thanks, I'm hurry". Some one decided to commit suicide and lied down on the rails. He died of hunger.

Read more on the history of the first Middle-East railway in Wikipedia

The cache
Before you can find the cache location, you have to make about 1km hike along the abandoned railway, on the section between Talpiot industrial area and Oranim junction (See waypoints). You can do it in either direction. While walking, open your eyes and look for clues - numbers, letters and signs. Some of the clues are there for many years and some are relative new. Look carefully and read below what to look for, so you will not need to make the way a second time or more. All the clues can be found without leaving the railway track.

• Look for a year, telling when did this section of railway was made. You will find it more than once. write this year as 19AB
• Measure the inner distance between the rails (from the inner side of one rail to the inner side of the other). This distance is 1C3.5 cm
• Find the name of the steel company which made the rails (9 letters). Some of its letters are Roman digits (M=1000,D=500,C=100,L=50,X=10,V=5,I=1). DEF=The sum of these Roman digits
• The number of the locomotive on the first official train after the establishmebt of the state of Israel (not the model number, which was Baldwin 4-6-0) = GHI
• What initials you will find many times along your route (all those names were actually used in some period):
  if JJ (Jaffa-Jerusalem), J=1
  if JJR (Jaffa Jerusalem Railway), J=2
  if OMR (Ottoman Military Railways), J=3
  if PR (Palestine Railway), J=4
  if PMR (Palestine Military Railway), J=5
  if IR (Israel Railways), J=6
  if IPRA (Israel Ports and Railway Authority), J=7
  Note: In sign #55 you'll find two of the initials. One of them is the answer, which appears many times along the route.
• Starting from Talpiot end of path waypoint, proceed toward Oranim end of path waypoint, while counting 84 wood pieces. There you will find a number which will be KLM (look down for the number, not on trees or poles)
• Another inscription that appears many times is HBS followed by two digits. Let them be NP
• Find two railway signals. The vertical signal is a stop sign. The diagonal one shows the status of the next signal, so the train will have time to stop. A train which arrives to the first signal with speed 30 km/h stops after a constant deceleration, on the 2nd signal. How much time it takes? let it be QR seconds.

The cache is a 600ml Lock&Lock container.

Congratulations for Silverwater, the FTF!