QUETTA    -    Pakistan Railways putting concerted efforts to com­pete rehabilitation work of 33.50-kilometer track ‘through sleeper renewal’ between Quetta-Bostan and Quetta-Chaman section shortly. “The track will not only facilitate the passen­gers, small businessmen, but also connect three ma­jor cities of the province,” an official source in the Minis­try of Railways told media. He said railway network in Baluchistan province mainly consisted of Quetta Division having Dera Allah Yar Sibi-Quetta, Quetta-Chaman, Si­bi-Khost, Spezend-Dalban­din-Taftan and Bostan-Zhob which were closed for the last 15 years. The source said there were two passen­ger trains namely Jaffer Ex­press (40Up, 39 Down) and Chaman Passenger (349Up, 350 Down) operating in Balochistan while no sta­tions had been closed during the last 15 years in Quetta division. He said the overall length of the railway track in Balochistan was 1470.36 ki­lometer including the closed Bostan-Zhob section. “The most of the track was more than one hundred year old and on certain stretches, en­gineering speed restrictions have been imposed due to deferred maintenance and owing to resource con­straints,” he said adding that the routine maintenance of track was being carried out with available resources. To improve railway services in Balochistan, he said the de­partment was taking several steps like approval of PC-I for the track’s rehabilita­tion and the rehabilitation of another 100-km track be­tween Ahmedwal Dalbadin on Quetta-Taftan section. He said that 100-km reha­bilitation of track between Nokundi Kohi-Taftan on Quetta-Taftan section while 160.024 kilometers reha­bilitation of track between Bostan-Chaman on Quetta-Chaman section would be carried out.

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