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Declan, an acceptable and apparently the best-informed foreign journalist to have covered Pakistan, based his story on a train journey from Peshawar to Karachi. Full of humor, compassion, color and detail, the account is more of a symbol for Pakistan than a clear-cut voyage piece. As somebody who has watched the descending route of our national rail system for a number of years, I read Declan’s account with huge curiosity and anxiety. I began my civil service career in the late ’60s with the PR’s finance department. At that time, the path from Lahore to Khanewal had been electrified and the Karachi circular train was about to be began. That no additional electrification was undertaken, and the Karachi circular railway ran only temporarily, is a sad statement on the system as well as on national precedence. Another fact to replicate on is that since independence, we have failed to add a single mile to the rail network. Within the impressive red-brick railway headquarters’ building in Lahore, one could not visualize then that the association was at the beginning of its death spiral. Senior officers lived in large royal houses in Mayo Gardens, with its tree-lined roads and its own electricity supply. As I rose up the ranks, I was allotted the biggest house I have ever lived in, before or since. One could swim, play tennis or golf almost free of cost at the subsidized clubs run by the association for its officers. In its prime time, PR had a virtual domination on size transport and passenger traffic. I remember innumerable train journeys in air-conditioned comfort, with trains generally running on time, and the system working sensibly professionally. Pretty well like the respite of the country, in fact. The finances of train transportation are such that traveler services are typically sponsored by supplies traffic. As PR’s share of immensity cargo cuts down, traveler services began to undergo. In real terms, government investment in engines, track and wagons refused. So, too, did PR’s economics. From being a gainful association, the system is now barely surviving on financial support. According to Latest Pakistan News other countries also maintain their railways for a diversity of reasons. They stay the most inexpensive form of transportation, as well as the most environmentally friendly. France, for example, sustains one of the world’s most efficient systems and sponsors it through national and regional financial plans. India runs the world’s biggest and most gainful rail network.
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