Its a very sad situation with massive incompetence of Railways, which is publicly admitting that they dont have fuel money for more than 2 days. The responsible person should resign immediately. With all trains shut there is no work left for them, and instead a sincere and honest, and efficient team of persons should be put in place, for 3 years to bring immediate improvements, to railways dept. The importance of good railways is critical for the entire economy of the country, which is based on good affordable and very efficient railways infrastructure, including new engines, bogie's, tracks, bridges, etc. It is worth pointing out that one train engine can pull up to 500 plus bogie's at more than 130 km/hour. And since Karachi port KPT/PQ handles many thousand containers a day mostly going up country and thats a lot of containers, that have to be moved up north and 10 trains of few hundred cargo bogie's are required on a daily basis. And 10 trains from Khyber to Karachi carrying exportable goods back to port daily, may be needed to cater to freight needs of other northern land lock neighbor countries. In fact with some minor modifications, trains can carry complete trucks with their containers on them and when they reach the nearest station they can drive them off using a ramp, making the freight trains and truck combination even more efficient. The cost of cargo in trains is always as a general rule of thumb about 1/5 of cost by truck. So for few hundred containers, few hundred drivers are required for day/night, and few hundred truck engines and all using a lot of diesel. In a train however there are 4-5 drivers and one big engine the size of approximately 8-10 truck engines. So if a truck charges Rs 100,000 per container, per trip to Khyber from Karachi as fare, a train will be able to do the same in Rs 20,000 per container and that also with profitably for railways, if done efficiently. This will have a tremendous positive, much needed boost on the economy, especially for the industries, exporters, in Pakistan, who will then be able to save their industry and expand their business due to this efficient saving. Thus creating more employment overall in the country. This will also help in reducing cost of doing business in Pakistan. Thus making Pakistan a much more attractive destination for both local/foreign, direct investments. Improved railways will also bring down the cost of food in urban areas, as food will reach easily to cities. Also to add value to railway income, one Railways dept should set up large cold stores, milk chillers, fruit and vegetable wash plants and big warehouse and grain silos next to all major stations especially near the rural rail stations to store perishable goods for customers for a fee/rent. By using some of its surplus land in this productive way, railways will yield better efficiency for both the railways dept and its customers will generate much needed extra income for railways. This extra fund can be put to good use to better pay all its railway employees, and secondly to upgrade all its systems, including latest signaling, and maybe even adding high speed wide freight tracks and trains gradually in near future. Z H EFFENDI, Karachi, July 19.