From west of Afula the line again leaves the original alignment and instead of bisecting historical Afula in a straight line at ground level as the original line did, it curves around the center of the city to the north. This section includes a long bridge over Highway 60 as well as traversing through a set of tunnels nearly a kilometer in length in the area between Afula and Afula Ilit and under Highway 65 until it reaches Kibbutz Merhavia just east of Afula. From there, in the eastern part of the valley from Merhavia to Beit She'an, the railway passes just south of Highway 71, situated on or very near the historical alignment. The railway was used by 1.34 million passengers in 2018, and 1.1 million in 2017. It is planned that in the future, the railway will be extended from Beit She'an to the Jordan River border crossing at the Sheikh Hussein bridge. This extension will require significant tunneling and bridging in order to overcome the steep elevation changes of the Jordan Rift Valley, costing an estimated NIS 2 billion for the proposed 15 km route. The Israeli Ministry of Transportation has proposed allocating NIS 15 million for the extension's detailed design in the 2019 transportation budget. Additional long-term plans exist to connect the Valley railway directly to the Eastern Railway along a route incorporating a long tunnel beneath Menashe Heights, therefore providing a full eastern rail corridor connecting northen and central Israel, supplementing the Coastal Railway as well as enabling freight trains from central Israel to reach Haifa Bay or the Jordanian border without passing through downtown Haifa.