Pakistan Railways to revive Quetta Express, offer Bolan Mail to investors

PR authorities working on public-private partnership deal in latter case.

LAHORE: Pakistan Railways (PR) authorities plan to privatise one more train and restart operations of another train suspended in March last year, The Express Tribune has learnt.

PR authorities had suspended operations of the Quetta Express in March 2012 because of a shortage of locomotives and a deficit in its earnings and expenditures. The train had run between Lahore and Quetta.

Now the position of locomotives has purportedly improved, and PR authorities have decided to restore operations of the Quetta Express with an aim to facilitate the inhabitants of Balochistan. The train service will be restored in mid-April, after 13 months of suspension.

PR authorities are also working to outsource the Bolan Mail train service, which connects Quetta and Karachi, with an aim to make the train a successful joint venture that earns Railways healthy profits.

Bolan Mail will have 10 coaches, and PR authorities are likely to invite an expression of interest from interested parties in the coming week.

Railways has already privatised three trains, out of which two are successfully in business, while one has defaulted on payments to the tune of Rs370 million to PR, an official close to the development said.

This would be the fourth train, after the Shalimar and Business expresses and the Night Coach, which have been outsourced by PR on the basis of a public-private partnership.

The Night Coach consists of 14 coaches, and runs between Lahore and Karachi via Faisalabad and Multan. Shalimar Express runs between Karachi and Lahore, while the third semi-privatised train service, the Business Express, also ran between Lahore and Karachi. It has also defaulted on Rs370 million payments due to Pakistan Railways.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2013.

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