Railways discontinues Lahore-Khanewal electric rail service

Pakistan Railways (PR) has discontinued the electric train service due to load shedding and lack of maintenance, sources said. The financial crisis-hit railway has discontinued the foreign funded service, which was started in early 1970s over the 286kms Lahore-Khanewal Main Track, while scraping almost 29 electric engines.
The electric engines have gone bad to worse for the lack of maintenance and after the discontnuation of service the remaining engines were also going to be scrapped. The 29 electric engines worth million of rupees were imported during Field Marshal Ayub Khan's regime while more than Rs 140 million were spent on electrification along the track between Khanewal and Lahore.
Out of the 29 engines, only five to six engines were being run on that track currently, but the railways authority has cancelled the remaining service after what the sources claimed electric wires were stolen between Lahore and Khanewal. Hundreds of Railways employees, who maintained the electric system along the route, have also been shifted to other departments, they added.
The disruptions in power supply to the system were another reason of closure of the service, which was comparatively cheaper and efficient for Railways. Twenty-five engines were also in poor condition and could not be repaired because of non-availability of spare parts and other facilities, the source added.
While the closure of the service has caused railways lose of a cheaper system, it has added to the scrapped material of PR, which according the General Manager PR Saeed Akhtar, was worth over Rs 5 billion.
The electric train service was not only a cheaper, but it had also improved the trains' speed as the diesel powered trains were taking almost 20 to 22 hours to reach Lahore from Karachi, which according to the sources could have been reduced by four to five hours if the electric system was restored.
However, talking to Business Recorder, the General Manager Railways said that the main reason for the closure of service was due to the availability of electric facility only on one single track as the same was not available on both tracks between the two cities.
The wires along the route were not in a position to continue the service besides the engines brought 40 years before has also completed their lives, he said. Saeed Akhtar said, it was currently, running only two to three electric trains while the rest has already been scrapped as they had lost the efficiency after completing their life cycle of 20 to 25 years.