Will railways be able to find its feet again?Every patriotic person of this country is sad over the step-motherly treatment meted to this very important mode of transport by the successive governments. It goes without saying that from 1960 onwards the road transporters whether they were bus , wagon or truck owners wielded considerable influence in the corridors of power. They knew that if railways flourished they will not be able to make a quick buck. They, therefore saw to it that no effort on the part of the government to develop railway succeed.
We had inherited a very good and efficient railway system from the Britishers in 1947. Despite the fact that technology wasn’t as developed as it is today the British railway engineers constructed railway line in the jagged and rugged terrain of Balochistan and KPK is such a manner which defies imagination. Even today’s engineers marvel at their ingenuity. Over 15000 labourers used to work when railway lines, bridges over them and tunnels were being dug in the mid of nineteenth century when Lord Dalhousie was Governor General of the then India. Thousand of labourers and mechanics had died of accidents and disease while constructing rail line in Balochstan and KPK. Both of these areas were considered by the Brits as strategically very important. They also wanted to extend their area of influence to Afghanistan and Iran too where they feared that Russia might try to gain a foothold.
Uptill the mid of 1960, the rulers of this country used to travel in railways. What a pity that even the railway ministers have stopped travelling in railways in this country since long what to speak of the president or the prime minister which shows the contempt with which they hold this important mode of travel. The railways can regain its lost glory provided the rulers in the first phase restore it to the conditions it existed in 1947, hook, line and sinker. In the second phase, other essential steps aimed at its modernisation can be undertaken.
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