One of the signs at the old Turkish train station in Beer Sheva. The complex is named after locomotive number 70414, the steam locomotive that traveled on the Beer Sheva line.
The Manager’s house was photographed on the same day
Click for a larger image On one of the walls of the house appears the first stanza of the famous locomotive poem written by Haim Hefer, a poem about locomotive number 70414 after which the complex is named. In the song performed by Eric Lavie, the locomotive’s last journey at the end of its duty is described, to the railway workshops in Haifa.
The Locomotive Song A locomotive stood at the station in Be’er Sheva
And its number is seventy four hundred and fourteen
Exhausted steam locomotive, old steam locomotive
stood at the station and lit a smoke
Words: Haim Hefer
Composer: Yohanan Zerai
Click for a larger image The locomotive the song is talking about was photographed on the same day, in the same area
Click for a larger image Translation of the text on the sign:
2
The Manager’s House Logo of the locomotive complex 70414 - a station with a story
Beer Sheva is one of the oldest cities in the Land of Israel and its first settlers lived there about 6,000 years ago and from the time of Abraham our father.
The old city in Be’er Sheva was built about 100 years ago during the Turkish rule - as a central district city, therefore there are unique and historically important buildings in it.
The Turkish railway station was established during the Ottoman rule and Be’er Sheva was joined in 1915 to the international railway line "Hijazit Railway".
The "Director’s House" served as the residence of the station manager and his family.
Since the 1980s, the compound of the director’s house has been used as a branch and a field school in Beer-Sheva of the Society for the Protection of Nature.
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