VEHARI, Feb 15: For Hakim Ali who travels to Karachi by train once every month and has been doing so for the last two decades, the rail journey has gone from bad to worse.

“If I have some better option, I will never board trains,” says Ali, a toys trader. He is not alone in forming this opinion. For others who use the Lodhran-Vehari-Pakpattan-Kasur section of the railways, the journey is not less than a nightmare.

“The Pakistan Railways now eyes a bullet train project between Lahore and Rawalpindi, but it is meeting out a stepmotherly treatment to this and several other sections,” says Abdul Wahid, a schoolteacher, who goes through the `torture’ of travel by Pakpattan Express whenever he visits his in-laws in Lodhran.

Delayed arrivals and departures, locomotive failures, bad condition of railway stations and passenger coaches, substandard and costly food and unfriendly railway staff are common irritants.

Besides, the number of trains operating on this section is too inadequate to meet the demand. Fareed Express (Lahore-Karachi) and Pakpattan Express (Sammsatta-Lahore) are the two trains that connect the people of Vehari, Pakpattan, Kasur, Burewala, Arifwala and Mailsi with rest of the country. If someone wants travel to Karachi or some other down-country destination by train, he will have to wait for 24 hours.

This correspondent also travelled to and from Lodhran by Pakpattan Express last Sunday and found the coaches in bad shape, with seats, toilets, windows and lights in a state of disrepair.

On return journey, the locomotive of 119-Up broke down near Kehror Pucca and the repair took five hours. The driver said he and other staff of the train had requested the high-ups several times to replace the old locomotive, but no body listened. “This is the second failure of the week,” he said.

He said the locomotive failures at deserted places added to passengers’ problems. “In summers, it is not less than a hell.”

Another painful aspect of the train journey these days is the unfriendly attitude of railway police and other staff. “They remain on the look for ways to mint money,” says Sheikh Abdullah who travelled to Karachi by Fareed Express recently.

He said he and several other passengers got economy class seats by bribing police after the conductor guard refused to oblige them through legal means. “They are hand in glove,” he said of railway police and other staff.

Those who get their seats reserved well in advance face problems in getting the seats vacated at the time of journey.