LAHORE: In a bid to control accidents and stop illegal crossing of the railway lines by trespassers, the Pakistan Railways (PR) has closed 924 unauthorised passages / points in various sections of Lahore division.

The passages have been closed by fencing the area spreading over 28km in Lahore-Raiwind-Okara, Lahore-Shahdara-Gujranwala, Lahore-Narowal and Rawalpindi and Lahore-Sheikhupura-Faisalabad sections, Dawn has learnt.

“The passages being used by the trespassers to cross the railway line in violation of the law have been closed through fencing. These include 14 most critical points along the track from Lahore to Shahdara. This section has been completely fenced on both sides of the track due to various fatal / non-fatal accidents,” PR’s Divisional Superintendent Nasir Khalily told Dawn on Sunday.

“We have also had 100 people arrested and lodged FIRs against them for trespassing on railway track unlawfully. Moreover, minor penalties / fines were also imposed on another 700 people during the national campaign against trespassing,” he added.

The PR has been in trouble, especially for the last two years or so, due to increasing fatal / non-fatal accidents including those which occurred owing to trespassing, dilapidated rail track etc. The major accidents included killing of Sikh pilgrims near Farooqabad, Sheikhupura after their bus / coach entered the railway track through an unmanned level crossing and was hit by a passenger train last year, two newly-wed couples near Pattoki when a passenger train hit their car at a manned level crossing and three people of a family when their bike hit a train at an unmanned crossing near Sahianwala (Faisalabad).

In addition to these, several people lost their lives while crossing the railway lines despite seeing the trains approaching or while making TikTok videos on the tracks in all divisions, especially Lahore, Multan, Karachi and Peshawar.

Mr Khalily said the increasing accidents left the divisional PR administrations including Lahore with no option but to take concrete actions by involving the railway police and other departments concerned. The Lahore PR administration divided campaign into two parts -- preventive and enforcement. “Under preventive measures, we identified all unauthorised passages being used by the pedestrians and motorists to cross the railway lines rather than the authorised manned level crossings or underpasses at various locations,” he explained.

He said the total area having illegal passages including the vulnerable points and fenced comprised 100,000 Sq-feet situated on 28km long stretches in various sections. This helped PR a lot in controlling accidents, he maintained. He said the PR Lahore regional team, at present, is working to minimise engineering restrictions (cautions for slow speed, other precautionary measures at the railway lines) by rectifying the faults.

“We have also succeeded in breaking cartel of the train staff who were earlier performing duties in the trains of their choice. By doing this, we have earned Rs7.2 million more than during last couple of months in the wake of imposing fines on the ticketless passengers,” the DS claimed.

On the other hand, Pakistan Railways (PR) Lahore admin says that running of Eid special trains may not be required this year due to meagre number of passengers, Covid restrictions and other issues.

“We are ready for both situations -- run Eid special trains or not. But it will only be decided when we will have passengers that we don’t have almost,” Divisional Transportation Officer Ms Bushra told Dawn. She said it happened for the first time that the train occupancy drastically dropped below 50 per cent.

“In a train today, there were only few passengers sitting in one of the coaches,” she added.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2021