PR overhaul

This refers to the news report, ‘19 killed as troop train falls into canal’ (July 3). It has now been revealed that the train engine was malfunctioned and the train veered off its track before reaching the Canal Bridge near Gujranwala. Pakistan Railways has a history of accidents. The major reasons are old locomotives, unguarded level-crossings, untrained signal operators and sleepy drivers.
Unfortunately, an inept and uncommitted top management has made no serious efforts during the last six decades to modernise the railways. Only five new locomotives were added each year while it would by now added at least 325 Category A locomotives. The present old fleet should have been dismantled much earlier. The recent procurement of 55 refurbished Chinese locomotives proved to be a bad deal on account of various technical as well as non-professional contractual issues. The railways in its inventory has locomotives as old as 80-100 years. They were rebuilt by the Mughalpura Railway Workshop under an overhaul programme. But again every machine has useful remaining life and overhauling capacity. In simple terms since science and technology takes a fast leap forward it is not a prudent exercise to rebuild or refurbish any machine more than a couple of times. Therefore, you cannot keep on overhauling a machine for 100 years. The time has come to totally revamp the organisation.
Col (r) Engr Naeem Ashraf
Mandra