- Saad says new route to link people of four provinces
Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique on Saturday said that the government was determined to convert the Pakistan Railways into one of the best railways in the region.
Addressing the media on welcoming ceremony of Quetta-bound Jaffar Express train on its first journey from Peshawar to Quetta at the Railway Station here, he said that the extension of the route from Quetta to Peshawar would link the people of four provinces.
He termed the extension of route of the train a major step and contribution of the PR in the national unity. The minister said that few decades earlier, Chiltan Express Train was operated from Quetta to Peshawar and now the Jaffar Express would run on this route.
He said that the PR was on a successful track despite of hurdles, problems and limited resources, adding that the railways was making progress continuously. He said that several agreements about uplift of railways would be signed during the visit of Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to China.
“After the upgradation of Main Line 1 (ML-1) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project will start where trains will run at 160 km/hr in future,” he added. To a question, Saad said that a strategy was under process to convert unmanned and signal-less level crossings into signal ones.
He said that all the three rakes of Jaffar Express train would be upgraded in next three months, however, upgraded rake of the Pak Business Express train would be inaugurated soon. “Spared coaches from these trains will be attached to the branch lines trains,” he added.
To another question, he said that response of the advertisement of expression of interest on several rail projects under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis was positive and some prominent companies of the world were expected to show their interest in these projects.
He said that out sourcing of the trains was a good experiment and more trains would be out sourced in future. He hoped that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government would welcome the extension of the Jaffar Express.
