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| April 19, 2007 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 01, 1428 |
Peshawar Express discontinued
PESHAWAR, April 18: Pakistan Railways has discontinued Peshawar Express, a non-stop service plying between Peshawar and Rawalpindi, due to lukewarm response from people and growing financial losses.
Officials told Dawn that the Peshawar Express was one of the 15 non-stop services launched last year.
The train had two daily trips between Peshawar and Rawalpindi, which benefited the people of Peshawar, Nowshera, and Attock.
The train fare was only Rs85. The service, however, got tepid response from travellers, officials said, adding that the total revenue generated was not more than Rs12,000 a day.
“This prompted authorities to take steps for curtailing the expenditure, as PR was already facing severe financial crunch. Initially, one trip of the Peshawar Express was slashed down, but even then the service couldn’t become economically feasible and finally it was discontinued,” a senior PR official at the Peshawar division said.
The official said that the same rail service had been diverted from the Peshawar-Rawalpindi route to Kundia (Mianwali)-Rawalpindi.
The officials said the Pakistan Railways was attracting many passengers from interior Punjab and Sindh with the launch of the special train services, and the total number of travellers was expected to touch the four million mark by the end of the current fiscal year.
To cater to the growing demands, the government is importing six new railcars that would operate as shuttle trains on Lahore-Faisalabad, Lahore-Multan, and Karachi-Hyderabad routes, officials said.
APP adds: Meanwhile, the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) has demanded the revival of the Peshawar Express.
In a statement issued here on Wednesday, SCCI President Liaqat Ahmed Khan recalled that only three months back Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had announced the revival of the non-stop train service between Peshawar and Pindi. It was decided then that the Peshawar
Express would run twice a day between Peshawar and Pindi. However, later the train service started running only once a day.
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