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Railways need 410 locomotives for daily operations: Bilour

* Minister says automatic signalling system to be installed on Karachi-Lahore track by mid-2010

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour on Friday said the Pakistan Railways needed 410 locomotives for day-to-day operations, but had only managed to purchase 122 locomotives during the last 20 years.

Talking to reporters at his office, the minister said Railways was doing everything to mitigate human errors in the future and implementing systems that would make a train stop automatically, even if a driver ignored a red signal. He said an automatic signalling system would be installed by mid-2010 on the Karachi-Lahore track.

The system would be imported from Sweden or Canada through a loan from the Islamic Development Bank. The minister said successive governments had failed to pay attention to improving the condition of Pakistan Railways and one of the key reasons for the deteriorating stae of affairs of the department was the inconsistent policies of successive governments. “Governments have invested more on developing a road network and little importance has been given to the needs of the railways,” Bilour said.

“We are even operating some 40-year-old locomotives,” he added. “We receive complaints every day that a particular train broke down due to technical fault in a locomotive.” Bilour said Pakistan exported locomotives to Bangladesh in 1992, but now the country has been reduced to importing locomotives. The minister said rail tracks were in dilapidated conditions at various places, adding that the government was not investing in improving rail tracks, which resulted in longer travel times for short journeys. Bilour, however, avoided questions regarding the operational losses and corruption in the railways. He said all efforts were being made to improve the rail cargo service. “We are opening our doors to the private sector and plans are underway to outsource some operations.” Regarding the recent train accident in Karachi, the minister said it was caused by human error.

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