The late arrival of trains continued on Thursday for the 15th consecutive day, with almost all the express trains reaching the Lahore Railway Station three to nine hours later than the scheduled arrival time.
The continuous delays in the arrivals, and subsequent departures, of almost all trains on the main and branch lines have only added to the miseries of already riled passengers. Passengers said the Railways administration had failed to operate trains on time even from its headquarters.
According to details, Karachi Express’ schedule arrival time was 3:45pm, but it arrived at 8:45pm, Tezgam Express was expected at 3:15am but it reached Lahore at 9am, Allama Iqbal Express arrived at 10:35pm instead of 11:15am, while Quetta Express arrived seven hours late at 4:20pm time instead of 8:40am.
Badr Express, scheduled to reach at 1:30pm, arrived at 7:05pm. Tezgam was expected to arrive at 5pm but it had not reached Lahore by 9pm Thursday, while Jaffer Express, scheduled to arrive at 5pm, had was also reportedly expected at 12 midnight. The situation has almost remained the same for the last several weeks, but on Thursday, departure of trains from Lahore was badly affected due to a shortage of locomotives.
Express as well as passenger trains, including Chanab Express, Badr Express, Margala Express, Narowal Passenger, Karachi Express, Okara, Sarghodha, Lasani,Ravi and Baoo trains left for their respective destinations five to 10 hours later than scheduled. Passengers at the Lahore Railway Station complained of severe hardships to the late running of trains. Railways operational staff told Pakistan Today that the current weather was also part of the reason behind the trains running late, besides the obvious conundrum of a shortage of locomotives. They said the problem would persist and trains would run late until new locomotives were provided to Railways.
