Railway is a poor man’s transport and a majority of our countrymen travel in it inside the country. It is heartening to note that the government is going the whole hog to improve its working. Needless to say we had inherited railway in a good shape in 1947 at the time of creation of Pakistan. It is a pity that while India is today miles ahead from us in improving its railway system our rulers didn’t give due attention to it and instead concentrated on private road transport as big transporters had been always in the citadel of power as MNAs and MPAs who didn’t allow modernisation of railways.
To quote an instance there is a single railway track between Rawalpindi and boundary of South Waziristan which connects Kohat, Bannu, Lakki and Tank. It could have been widened as that would have provided a safe rail journey to commuters from Pindi up to southern districts of KPK. The same track could have been extended to Quetta via Tanai in South Waziristan. Goods train could have been made to transport consumer goods also to Balochistan through that route. Even now that idea can be translated into a reality.
What a pity also that instead of modernising Karachi’s tram and introducing trams in every city of the country we uprooted Karachi’s tram system.
