Night coach to nowhere

Pakistan Railways alarming record of repeated tragic accidents

Despite showing some improvement in financial health and planned acquisition of modern powerful locomotives and high speed coaches, this swift and affordable mode of transport for the common man remains a frequent prey to fatal mishaps in Pakistan. Within the past couple of days there were two, the usually crowded night coach from Lahore to Karachi ramming into an oil tanker (!) stalled on a manned railway crossing in Sheikhupura causing a massive explosion which enveloped the engine and six bogies, and the coaches of two freight trains derailing at Chichawatni and Shorkot. The first resulted in, so far, two fatalities and ten injured, while the second thankfully left human beings unscathed, but disrupted the normal movement of six trains for about ten hours, with the stranded passengers venting their anger on railway personnel.

The blame, as usual, has been duly and variously apportioned to underlings, to the train driver and his assistant (both deceased), railway gatemen, the mad rush (a leading malaise of our roads) of the since arrested tanker driver and breaking of the huge vehicle’s axle. But the repeated series of calamities point to a bigger crisis in the railways, mismanagement, lack of funds to upgrade crumbling infrastructure, thousands of manned and unmanned level crossings, the two constants, corruption and inefficiency, cover-ups after accidents, and the concerned minister’s lack of focus due to political and perceived business distractions.

Pakistan Railways shows a net income of Rs. 28 billion in 2015-16, but is its (2015) strength of 78, 031 employees sufficient for the vast 7,400 miles of track they are supposed to cover across the entire country? To further erode credibility of the official profit figures, the Punjab Revenue Authority has slapped a Sales Tax evasion notice of Rs. 46.92 million on the hapless organisation in its freight operations. The only panacea for genuine improvement lies, as always, in the CPEC and the $ 8.5 billion meant for modernisation under Pakistan Railways Vision 2025. But O, for another rustic but strong-willed local Laloo Prasad Yadav at the helm!