LAHORE, Dec 8: After around six months, the Babu Passenger train will resume chugging between Lahore and Sialkot from Monday (Dec 10).

The railways authorities had on June 18 suspended all the local trains in its Lahore Division after burning of four coaches of Babu Passenger train at Kamoke during a violent protest against loadshedding a day earlier. However, a formal decision to ensure the safety of passengers and cargo was announced on June 19.

The PR authorities started resuming operation of the 20 local trains from Lahore to Okara, Jaranwala, Shorkot, Wazirabad, Narowal, Faisalabad and Sialkot in mid-July.

“Acute shortage of locomotives and the law and order situation were the two major factors behind suspension of all the local trains in the Lahore Division,” said a senior officer of the PR commercial wing at its headquarters in Lahore on Saturday.

“The federal government released the Rs6 billion allocated funds and the public-private partnership has started yielding results. We have started getting rehabilitated locomotives, availability of which would be instrumental in getting the railways back on the rails. We will resume operation of all passenger and freight trains on its network all over the country and once again make the Pakistan Railways a profitable entity,” said the officer while expressing the optimism that by June 2014, some 150 new locomotives would be added to the PR fleet.