LAHORE, Aug 2: Non-availability and detention of coaches and locomotives at various places on the railways network continued to badly affect the trains operations for the third day on Wednesday with no immediate respite in sight for passengers as officials at the headquarters in Lahore said weather permitting the repair of the Ran Pathani bridge required at least 36 hours.
No freight train had been rolled out from Lahore since the bridge collapse near Karachi as the locomotives reserved for them were also being utilised to run passenger trains.
“We are still short of rakes though we have borrowed coaches from other divisions and in spite of utilising all the rolling stock available. What can we do when the rake will arrive late?” a senior officer of the Lahore division told this reporter.
Washing and checking of rake, he said, required at least three hours. Old rakes required four to five hours. Furthermore, Hyderabad washing lines were not capable of handling maintenance of big number of coaches, resulting in increasing burden on the Lahore division staff. “That is why trains are arriving and departing late,” the officer said.
Floodwater had on July 30 damaged three spans of a bridge between Ran Pathani and Dhabeji stations, forcing the Karachi division authorities to suspend the operation of all upcountry trains and halting all down country trains at Hyderabad.
Meanwhile, all major trains from Hyderabad reached Lahore late by at least 10 hours.
The Karachi Express (15-up) could reach Lahore after 9:30pm against its arrival time of 10:45am; the Karakuram Express (41-up) reached at 10pm instead of 7:45am, the Tezgam (7-up) at 11pm against the arrival time of 1:30pm.
The Allama Iqbal Express (9-up) arrived at Lahore at around 2pm instead of its arrival time of 9am while the Awam Express (13-up) arrived at 12 noon instead of 8:25am.
The Shalimar Express left for Hyderabad at around 4:30pm instead of its time of 6:30am, the Tezgam left one hour late, the Awam Express half-an-hour and the Allama Iqbal Express 20 minutes late. —Zaheer Mahmood Siddiqui