Railways authorities stopped from shifting shelter platform

MARDAN: Mardan Mayor Himayatullah Mayar and lawmakers on Thursday stopped Pakistan Railways authorities from shifting the platform shelter of the historic railway station of Mardan to Faisalabad.

Mohammad Raheel, Pakistan Railways Assistant Engineer for Bridges and Tech in headquarters Lahore, had written a letter to the divisional superintendent Peshawar, stating that Faisalabad is one of the major stations over the system and a large number of passengers travel to and from this station. However, the letter said, the platform of this station lacked passenger facilities, especially platform shelter. In order to facilitate the passengers, it has been decided to immediately provide platform shelter at island platforms. In this regard, platform shelter of Mardan station of NSR-DRG non-operational section is required to be shifted to Faisalabad, it added.

“Kindly make it convenient to direct the divisional engineer to dismantle the platform shelter at Mardan and dispatch the same for Faisalabad,” the letter said.

Sources said the Pakistan Railways employees had started work to shift the platform; however, Mayor Himayatullah Mayar and other lawmakers stopped the railway employees from shifting the Mardan station’s shelter platform.

In 1947, Pakistan had inherited the Northwestern Railway, one of the world’s great railway networks. The Section 29.4 of page two of the Buildings and Structures of Chapter 19 of the Railway Works Handbook 1928 and 1969 stated that the architectural features of the buildings would be maintained in all cases.