Reviving Pakistan Railways Published at Dawn Site By SYED AHMED Mississauga I AM a great fan of the Pakistan Railways and my heart bleeds to see its present state. As a school going child, it was a great pleasure to see trains roll in and roll out of Rohri Junction. It was not very long ago when the Pakistan Railways was one of the three best railway systems in Asia. Other developing countries used to look up to the PR and set it as a model to reorganise their own infrastructure. The factors that led to the catastrophe are political interference, nepotism, corruption and mismanagement in almost every field, notably poor maintenance of locomotives, rolling stocks, and traction equipment. According to a modest estimate, Pakistan Railways had a total of 546 locomotives in its inventory, but only 112 were on the track, while the rest were out of order -- some converted into junk and other awaiting extensive repairs. The task of repair of locomotives should be entrusted to the locomotive factory at Risalpur, which should undertake repairs in the following order: 1) through cannibalisation of some of the locomotives. 2) Import and replace diesel motors, generators and traction motors with regulating switch gears for some locomotives. 3) Import complete overhaul kit for remaining locomotives. I guess that four to five locomotives can be easily recommissioned for the price of a new one. The priority must be given to restoration of the railway tracks and signalling equipment. All unmanned and makeshift railway crossings must be either removed or standardised. Next priority should be given to goods traffic. The PR administration should operate two to three goods train for every passenger train. Effort must also be made to use traction power economically. For example, avoid using powerful railway engines (2500-3000 HP) for hauling light passenger trains, including those plying on branch lines. Later send the defective rolling stock to Pakistan Railways carriage factory, Islamabad, for revamping cannot be overlooked in order to provide fairly good quality travelling facilities to the public. During revamping phase of railway, facilities available at Heavy Mechanical and Electrical Complexes at Taxila may not be overlooked. It may be valuable to auction the abandoned railway tracks, steel bridge girders and trusses and wrecked railway engines and coaching and rolling stocks to generate funds. Also, recovery grabbed railway lands or its cost from the land mafia at prevailing market price may be an added advantage. Last but not the least, remove all corrupt, incompetent and lethargic elements from all sections of the Pakistan Railways, particularly from top echelons. There is no conceivable reason why the Pakistan Railways cannot, once again, become a profit-making business.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:49:34 +0000
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