RAILWAYS' failings are primarily the discontinuation of a number of train services, including goods trains, torturous delays for passengers, dangerous condition of tracks, poor services in trains and corruption in sale of tickets.

And now its retired employees have been publicly humiliated and received their pension only after agitation.

One aspect of the railways' doom is the pathetic condition of its residentialcolonies allover the country.

Once the standard and quality of houses in railway colonies made other people feel jealous of railway employees for the facilities they enjoyed.

Colonies at Mayo Gardens, Mughalpura and Garhi Shahu inLahore, Westridge in Rawalpindi and Adam Shah in Sukkur were famous for their grandeur and comfort. Now the same houses, some of which are more than hundred years old, are crumbling and in a dilapidated state for lack of maintenance.

Although these houses are dangerous; employees continue to live in them as they cannot afford to get rented accommodation outside.

Till the mid 1960s the new graduates of not only engineering but also of medicine cherished to join the railway service due to its reputation inherited from the British and the attractive perks enjoyed by its employees. At independence Pakistan got the North Western Railway in West Pakistan and East Bengal Railwayin the then East Pakistan. My late father was a bridge engineer in the railway and till 1957 we lived in a bungalow in the railway colony at Jhelum. The colony is located on a hillock near the railway station.

The house in which we lived had a large orchard having all kinds of fruit trees. Electricity never went off and the supply of water was nonstop. Besides regular maintenance and repairs, the house was white washed and painted every year and sprayed every week to kill mosquitoes.

Train service was punctual and reliable. The only fast train which ran between Peshawar and Karachi was the Queen's Mail, subsequently named as Tezgam, with the bogeys painted in red.

There was no airconditioning ofcompartments available at that time. As a child I would often go to the Jhelum railway station at the arrival time of Queen's Mail just to have a glimpse of the first class compartment from outside. I used to get awestruck looking at it walls painted in yellow colour, thick leather seats and fascinating lights. I would be greatly impressed by those who travelled in those compartments.

Some years back there was an article in the Time magazine on Indian Railway and it had praised the high quality and efficiency of these services. Writers of the article were amazed as to how such a large network was being managed in the whole of India so smoothly and with entire satisfaction of the travelling public.The only point to ponder here is that if India, which got the same system from the British as Pakistan, can manage such a huge setup maintaining a high standard of on-board services and punctuality of trains, what stops us from achieving the same.

PARVEZ RAHIM Karachi