The change of trains on junctions and junction-based transport philosophy shall be no more relevant in Pakistan. The proposed indigenous model is likely to act as a forerunner of highly modern Railway in Pakistan, as it is going to work as a multiplier; increasing the capacity of existing network almost ten times.
The proposed micro level changes in the network are likely to influence similar to that of macro level capital expenditure, stretching the potential of Railway business to the limitless boundaries of human imagination. In each proposed interchange/bypass construction, the greatest direct linking potential shall be unearthed.
In these circuit-shaped routes, originating and ending at terminals shall become insignificant and the employed locomotives and coaches would have to stay only for the required durations, but the trains will never be passengerless as is usually seen at the terminals in Pakistan.
The 'Direct Access High Speed interchanges/bypasses' construction project; which will multiply Rail business ten times in Pakistan and may be a surprise for many critics at national and international levels.
All our previous effort/study has been focused around the detection of the weaknesses of the existing junction-based transport outlook. Now it has become imperative to market the substitute model, which can replace the existing transport philosophy and may provide alternative intellectual fabric of new transport vision in Pakistan.
The new proposed model may be called 'Direct access high speed interchanges/bypasses construction project. These bypasses may be called 3-Ds or 4-Ds (three directions or four directions) direct access device at the existing junctions.
The proposed model is cost effective; the cheapest one for the Railways.
It shall be based on the home model 'Slight Alteration Scheme'.
It will replace, the present obsolete, rusty operational pattern, hitherto employed in the Railway business in Pakistan.
The slogan of the proposed plan shall be 'Connecting People', and the climax of the Railway business will be connecting every city/town, situated on any Railway section/division, with all the rest of the cities/towns of the country by direct trains for each and every city/town. To elaborate the point in question, it may be supposed that the present potential of the Railway network is stretched to, say, two thousands kilometres tracks, in Pakistan.
By constructing the proposed bypasses, hardly 70 kilometres in length or more, such potential shall be multiplied/converted into 10,000 km-long 'Operational Peripheries' in Pakistan. There would be a round-the-clock 24-hour Rail service. Even on the socalled branch lines, there would be a ceaseless, boundless mobility of the trains.
Such a mobility pattern will be of unique style, transforming the existing departure and arrival terminals into a wonderful approaching and exiting mechanisms. The proposed model is likely to give a new role and meaning to the departure and arrival terminals.
For the up and the down two-way straightening - of 3-D main lines, the standard application of two ways express theory, necessary interchanges/bypasses be constructed, by providing high speed inlets/outlets for and from Sehwan Sharif end, so that the running time between Karachi, Quetta and Hyderabad up to Jacobabad/D.G. Khan, is reduced by one hour. The basic requirement and the principle of retaining the highest speed like the uninterrupted speed on a motorway concept, has to be ensured.
Similarly the areas of Badin, Mirpurkhas, and Hyderabad city may have direct access trains for Quetta on the one hand and D.G. Khan/Mianwali and the N.W.F.P., on the other.
Similarly the transportation of passengers and goods up to the Zahidan/Iran and Trans Asian Railway networks may also be possibly explored. (iii) A surplus increase of revenue to the volume of 0.5 to one million dollar per month can be obtained by offering competitive travelling time reduction between Karachi and Hyderabad as compared to time consumed by the road rivals on the Super Highway.
Kotri junction working as an impediment in the way of competitive business, the same can be removed by the proposed straightening plan of the junction. If an express train covers the distance between outer signals of Hyderabad's down end and Kotri's down end, within 2 or 2.5 minutes, an estimated population of 15 million will rush to the train option between Karachi and Hyderabad.
According to some analysts, train running at a speed of 140 km or more between the two cities, and covering the distance in two hours, may be a prelude to the possibilities of 'Bullet Train' between these two largest cities of Pakistan.
It may be also proposed that all such inlets/outlets, all over the Pakistan, may be redesigned on 92 to 95 degree and home signals bifurcations may also be re-made on 92 degree or more, so that in the case of crossing, of even a goods train, a 60 seconds clearance is ensured on any given station in Pakistan.
The need of the hour is examining any sort of obstacles, if any, and removal of the same in the minimum possible time.
By virtue of constructing high speed interchanges/bypasses between Hyderabad, Sehwan Sharif end at the Kotri junction and between the Sukkur Bridge and the Rohri junction's Khairpur end, through an overhead device, following suggested trains, can re-capture nearly 1000 kilometres passengers market, by integrating the towns/cities on both banks of the Indus.
The proposed circuit trains will start, from Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi and would complete their, rather elliptical route as under.
TRAIN A: Karachi, Khairpur, Sukkur, Sehwan Sharif, Kotri and again back to Karachi.
TRAIN B: Karachi, Habibkot, Khairpur, Hyderabad and again back to Karachi.
TRAIN C: Hyderabad, Khairpur, Sukkur, Sehwan Sharif and again back to Hyderabad.
TRAIN D: Hyderabad, Sehwan Sharif, Sukkur, Khairpur and again back to Hyderabad.
TRAIN E: Sukkur, Sehwan Sharif, Hyderabad, Khairpur and back to Sukkur.
TRAIN F: Sukkur, Khairpur, Hyderabad, Sehwan Sharif and again back to Sukkur.
The above mentioned circuit shaped route modality may succeed, subject to the construction of most important interchanges/by passes, by providing an over head up/down bridge devices.
Since the proposed interchange/bypass concept is going to substitute the existing junction-based concept, two examples are going to reprove the significance of the replacing model in question.
Under the junction-based transport system, a passenger living in Larkana had to change the train for Khairpur at the Rohri junction and for Hyderabad, at the Kotri junction. Similarly a passenger living in Nawabshah had to change the train at Rohri junction, for say, Habibkot and for Dadu at the Kotri junction. With the emergence of parallel roads and their penetration upto small villages, no passenger would like to avail forced choice of time-consuming wait and late on a given junction.
Is it not astonishing that a city of more than 1.5 million people, Sukkur, has been having no direct train for Karachi and Hyderabad? Simultaneously a big populous city like Hyderabad is having no direct train for Sukkur, Larkana, Dadu and Sehwan Sharif. The growing proliferation of direct access of roads and high ways has increasingly exposed the in-built weaknesses of the junction based transport outlook.
By erecting completing bypasses at the Kotri junction, connecting ex-Kotri traffic to Sehwan Sharif end and at the Rohri junction, ex-Rohri-Khairpur bypass, transport market of the Sindh province will be tilted toward Railway and the cities/towns of Sehwan Sharif, Dadu, Larkana, Habibkot, Sukkur, Khairpur, Nawabshah, Tando Adam, Hyderabad shall be interconnected by a high speed two-way non stop train service and an estimated increase of one million dollars revenue per month may be predicted safely.
The proposed bypass at the Jacobabad junction will facilitate connecting of people through another circuit of Pakistan Railway, at half of the cost, because Shershah bypass, already exists between the Muzaffargarh end and the Shujabad end of the Shershah junction. The Shershah bypass has the bewildering potential of billion-plus business.
After some moments, it is revealed that train is travelling toward Quetta or Jacobabad end. To some critics of the proposed alterations in the Pakistan Railway network, narrating of some specific junction and its causing one hour time consumption in tiresome durations of journeys, may be repetitious and over-emphasised.
But the universal improvement in the speed limits and a few maintenance processes, after sufficiently long journeying, en-route, and the Road competitors can only be challenged, by viewing all stoppages, even due to unavoidable operational reasons, something colossally lurking as business obstacles. Such practice of arriving and returning is prevalent at the Sibi junction and the Much and the Spizend
Railway stations. Except on the Much Railway station where the British engineers found no ample space to build platforms, on the up and the down side tracks, high speed bypasses may be constructed for a competitive business in this mountainous region.
It is proposed that at Sibi junction, a higher speed bypass may be built between the Jacobabad end and the Quetta end, inclusive of a 90 degree new Railway station of Sibi on curved shaped, tracks, betwixt the two outer signals of the proposed station. For Harnai, Sibi, section, present Sibi Railway station may be continued to operate.
Such kind of approach may be instrumental in establishing direct rail link between Zahidan, Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and rest of the country. According to the unconfirmed reports, Iranian Railway is constructing Mashed Zahidan section rapidly and in a few years Pakistan may be connected with the Central Asia and Europe via Turkey. The Quetta-Zahidan section and its commercial potential are much higher than ever estimated.
The track has not been in good condition and needs upgradation for a competitive business, in the wake of growingly dominating market of passengers and goods transportation by the Road rivals. The British had constructed Quetta-Zahidan section to have a deep strategic and commercial depth shared with the King of Iran in those times.
The government of Pakistan has been spending lavishly on R.C.D. highway between Iran and Pakistan but very little or no amount has been spent on the maintenance and upgradation of the Railway line on this commercially important section. This route is 765 kilometres long and from the early beginning of the Railway, no express train has ever run on this section. But daily passenger train services were operated and covered this distance in 24 hours.
No benefit like that of improved speed or A.C. class accommodation has been given to the passengers on this section. Whereas the one-way daily influx of passengers is estimated at more than one thousand people per day, between Zahidan and Quetta.
Adding the number of passengers travelling to and from the towns of the Tuftan, DalBandin, Noshki, this number may sufficiently warrant daily non-stop express service, covering the distance in 11 to 12 hours. Keeping in view the condition of the track and permissible speed limit, the Pakistan Railway may plan a 12-hour journey between the Quetta and Zahidan cities/terminals.
It is expected by many analysts that Pakistan Railway can get 0.5 million dollar revenue per month, by reorganising two set of trains, the up and the down; morning train and the night coach at 9 am and at 5 pm, from both Quetta and the Zahidan respectively.
In the near future, more than a dozen trains may run between Quetta and various parts of the country. Out of these trains, each train may run to Zahidan and back once in a week, but the Quetta-Zahidan section shall have a daily service, morning, afternoon, and the evening, as the case may be.
CHAMAN-QUETTA SECTION: Can be revitalised by introducing direct trains from the border town of Chaman.
Apart from its strategic importance, this town is famous for its local fruit market, all other mutual business activity between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Nowadays only one passenger train is running between the Quetta and the Chaman, which is obviously, due to sticking up to the junction-based outlook, is limited to Quetta and the people have left this available option and started preferring the road competitors from the last two decades. Like many border towns, passengers travelling to and from Afghanistan to Pakistan have been in need of some real express train services, which could have delivered them to Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
It is proposed that following trains may be started immediately from the Chaman terminal so that the proposed Jalalabad section may be explored for passengers and goods transportation by the Pakistan Railway.
Chaman to Karachi via Dadu, Kotri; Chaman to Rawalpindi via Lahore; Chaman to Landikotal/Peshawar via Kot Addu, Attock; Chaman to Zahidan via Quetta.
The possibilities of acquiring the business partnership with Pakistani bank branches abroad and reputed travel agencies may be studied. Like prepaid card schemes, Pakistan Railway may launch advance paid booking programmes to minimise the risk of fraud or mismanagement.