LAHORE: The Pakistan Railways’ unresolved problems, like overworked and short staff, lack of refresher training courses, violations of duty rosters, besides other technical and administrative issues, not only continue to compromise the safety of passengers and crew members but also of the rolling stock, track and other infrastructure across the country.
The recent accident between Habibabad and Renala Khurd railway stations, over 70km away from Lahore on downward track on Mainline-1, also appears to be a result of a combination of factors caused by the railways chronic issues, as a detained assistant station master, in his statement to police, has complained about not being allowed enough rest due to overwork as there was a staff shortage.
In this train accident, an assistant driver lost his life, whereas the driver suffered injuries. Besides this, it resulted in a massive loss of freight train wagons, locomotives and the track.
“The PR is on the verge of complete destruction due to many longstanding issues being ignored by the higher authorities,” deplores an official source. “Unsafe PR train operations have put the safety of passengers, crew, rolling stock, etc at risk,” the official requesting anonymity says, deploring the lack of action by the high-ups.
Despite a record (around 80) number of train accidents, including derailments, reported on the PR network from January to date, the train operation continues without resolving crucial issues.
“Regular inspections of railway stations revealed that the staff have to frequently work for more than eight hours, either due to employee shortages or absence. This is the duty of the divisional officer concerned to check such overwork. In the recent example, the Renala Khurd ASM was called from his home to work extra hours despite completing his eight-hour duty. Since he had to work continuously for 24 hours, he may be so overworked that he issued a “line clear” direction to a goods train coming from Habibabad, allowing it to proceed to Renala without checking that a part of another goods train was still on the same track,” explained the officials. “Thus, the collision occurred, resulting in the instant death of an assistant driver and injuries to his senior colleague, besides loss of rolling stock and infrastructure,” he added.
The official also pointed out a lack of refresher courses for the staff, saying that under the railway rules, every field official is required to be sent for a minimum three-week refresher training in PR’s Walton Training School after every two years. If an official doesn’t attend such courses, he/she need to get a certificate from the divisional transportation officer (DTO) concerned to be able to perform duty. But these rules are being blatantly violated. However, neither the officials are sent on compulsory training, nor the DTOs or their subordinates (traffic inspectors) themselves bother to do so, and keep issuing certificates to their juniors, instead of sending them for training, he lamented. “The top officers know this situation well, but no one bothers, compromising passengers’ safety and putting the train operations at risk,” he deplored, demanding that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif immediately order a special audit of the PR’s operations across the country, starting from Lahore and Karachi.
According to another official, who also wished not to be named, while the computer-based interlocking (CBI) system installed at the ML-1 could not be made fully functional to date, the parallel system (Absolute), based on pointsman (kantaywala), has also been wrapped up. Since the system is not working, the old manual paper line clear (PLC) system is in place, wherein the driver gets ‘line clear’ direction on paper slips from the station, he added.
“In Renala train accident, the driver of the train says, nobody gave him PLC. He saw green signals to move ahead, but when he reached closer to the rear part of the train going ahead, he either didn’t see the next signal or the lights of the signal weren’t functioning. Resultantly, he kept heading forward and collided with the part of the train on the track,” he explained, adding that the ongoing investigation will clear the exact situation.
He said that soon after the accident, the relevant registers were immediately sent to Lahore. “I apprehend tampering with the record,” the official said.
The Lahore divisional superintendent was not available for his comment.
Minister for Railways Hanif Abbasi said he and his team are taking safety as their top priority. “I have assigned this task to some competent officers who are paying full attention to such issues, including regular refresher trainings, etc,” he maintained.
Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2025
