LAHORE, Dec 30: The federal railways minister counts the revival of long-shelved projects as his pluses while littered compartments, late trains and the suspension of rail traffic due to the collapse of Ran Pathani bridge in the monsoon as his failures in the year 2006.

“The department has failed to ensure that trains run on time and the standard of cleanliness in trains is satisfactory. The Ran Pathani incident affected the railways’ operation and revenue,” Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a press conference at the Railways Headquarters on Saturday. Mr Ahmed took the charge of the ministry on May 2.

He said the quality of food being served in trains had also not been up to the mark even though he had given a last warning to catering contractors to improve the food quality or face punishment. He said the obsolete signalling system and fog disrupted rail traffic.

Mr Ahmed said he had initiated work on the dualisation of track that had been lying pending for the last 60 years. “The Hafizabad-Shorkot section, lying unutilised for the last 20 years, had been rehabilitated in two-and-a-half months.

He said he would travel in train on that track at a speed of 120 kilometres per hour on

Jan 10.

“For the first time, freight trains ran under a timetable. Railways operated 12 more passenger trains, made up of rakes refurbished at the Mughalpura Workshops,” he added.

Two more trains would run in Jan and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would inaugurate an all-lower AC Jinnah Express on Jan 8. The fare for a white-collar class Rawalpindi-Karachi train would be Rs2,000 and another train would start running between Mianwali and Lahore from Jan 20, he said.

All express trains would have dining cars and coffee shops in a month or so.

“We have refurbished four dining cars while another four will be ready by the end of January. The first refurbished dining car will be attached to an express train on Jan 8,” said the Sheikh.