I was persuaded (coerced?) into travelling to Tel Aviv yesterday in order to induct a new employee. This is the first time that I have travelled by rail in the past nine months. I deliberately set off late (8:50 am - that's three hours later than my usual travelling time) so that there wouldn't be many people on the train. And indeed there weren't. One has to make a reservation for a particular train in advance (but no more than 48 hours in advance) so that the railway company can be sure that there aren't too many people travelling on each train. The compartment in which I set can hold somewhere around 80 people, I think. Yesterday there were four people in it.
Because I travelled at a non-peak hour, I had to wait for 50 minutes for a connecting train, instead of the normal 5-10 minutes which was very annoying. Coming back, I had to wait for a 'mere' 20 minutes, but there were more people on the train. One has to wear a mask all the time in the stations and on the train, of course. One is also not allowed to eat on the train (I started eating a pear but was cautioned not to do so by the conductor).
Verdict? It's definitely possible to travel by train but at the moment there's no overwhelming reason to do so.
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