LAHORE, June 21: Provision of ‘unfit’ rolling stock continues to affect the operations of Business Express, dealing a blow to the first joint venture of the Pakistan Railways under the private-public partnership.

For the last two months or so, incidents involving failure of power plant and locomotive had been causing embarrassment to the company operating the Business Express between Lahore and Karachi.

The company had complained early last month about provision of damaged power plant the failure of which angered passengers because they had to be shifted and adjusted on vacant seats in other coaches along with luggage during the journey.

More than 50 per cent of the passengers got their tickets refunded when the Business Express could not leave Lahore on its scheduled time on May 27. But the failure of power plant near Khanewal on June 19 annoyed the passengers to the extent that they thrashed the company staff.

A source at the railways headquarters in Lahore told Dawn on Thursday that the representatives of M/S Four Brothers International were rather furious at the provision of obsolete power plants for Karachi-bound Business Express that first delayed its departure by 10 minutes.

Quoting Four Brothers people, the source said that till the provision of ‘fit’ power plants, the Business Express had been smoothly running. However, these power plants were replaced with old, damaged and unserviceable units on June 19. So much so, one power plant was fuelled at platform No. 1 at the nick of departure, which caused 10 minutes delay.

After Khanewal station, a power plant attached to rear coaches stopped working. The other power plant was of less capacity and could not cater to lighting and cooling system of the whole train. In spite of efforts, the fault could not be rectified. The situation angered the passengers some of whom thrashed the train staff.

Unable to understand the logic behind replacement of ‘fit’ power plants with ‘unserviceable’ ones, the company has demanded thorough investigations into the matter. It has also ‘requested’ the railways administration to ensure provision of ‘fit’ power plant for Business Express in future ‘to avoid such unpleasant situation’ that affected not only its income but its repute as well, said the source.