LAHORE, May 3: Modalities of upgrading the outdated signalling system on the Pakistan Railways network will be discussed at a seminar being held here on Thursday (today).
Invitations have been extended to around a dozen foreign companies and five Pakistani universities to send experts for the day-long seminar to be presided over by railways chairman Shakil Durrani at the committee of the PR headquarters, officials said on Wednesday.
The two-session seminar is likely to be attended by experts of companies from Sweden, Germany, China, Japan, the US and the UK; faculty and students of the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, FAST, NUST, Comsat, GIK, besides retired chief engineers and serving officers of the railways and representatives of the Federal Ministry of Information Technology.
The senior railways officers will explain the current status of the signalling system and present proposals about its replacement in the morning session. The participants would discuss the pros and cons of the proposed system before finalising recommendations in the second session, officials said.
A retired chief engineer of the railways, who would attend the seminar, told this reporter: “Perhaps we are the only railways in the world which still has the 18th-century kerosene-lit semaphore signals.”
Most of the equipment of the railways signalling system, he said, consisted of mechanical gear which has outlived its normal life decades ago.
The pre-partition system on 123 stations permitted a speed limit of 15kms per hour. Some 185 stations have the system installed in 1947 and upgraded in 1995, which allowed a speed of 50kms per hour while 20 stations have a system of 1974 with a speed limit of 70kms per hour.
“The most modern mechanical system the railways has on its 217 stations was installed before 1947 and upgraded in 1999 which allows a maximum speed of 96 to 105 kilometre per hour,” he said.
The latest electrical system or all relay interlocking was installed between 1962 and 1969 at 40 stations on Karachi-Kotri, Panu Aqil-Chani Goth and Lahore-Badami Bagh main line sections but excluding Rahim Yar Khan and Khanpur, said the former chief engineer.
Representative of a European company, however, was skeptical that the recommendations of the seminar would bring about any betterment in the PR signalling system.
The cancellation of an agreement, signed in the presence of President Gen Pervez Musharraf and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Beijing on July 3, 2003 for the provision of modern signalling system, had put the credibility of the PR at stake.
He said the agreement was signed after several rounds of bidding and evaluation of the tenders. The financial package for the project was later revised to the satisfaction of Pakistani side through negotiations between the Chinese firm and Islamabad on the request of the finance ministry for reducing the interest.
The Chinese conducted surveys of the section where the system was to be installed. Later, the PR changed the section and the Chinese again surveyed the area. But the PR authorities merely said the Chinese firm cost was excessive and that new priority and phasing led to the cancellation of the agreement.
Under these circumstances, who would believe the Pakistan Railways? asked the foreign company representative.