Pakistan Railways will commence a non-stop train service between Lahore and Rawalpindi from August 1, 2004, with latest AC parlour, lower AC and economy class coaches for the comfort of passengers.
Addressing a news conference, the General Manager, Pakistan Railways, Aurengzeb Khan, on Sunday said that the purpose of introducing this non-stop service is to provide the facility of comfortable journey to passengers between Rawalpindi and Lahore.
Giving details about the timing schedule, he said the train would depart from Lahore at 0600 hours daily and reach Rawalpindi at 0945 hours; while its departure time from Rawalpindi would be 1800 hours and it would reach Lahore at 2145 hours.
The train will have 2 AC parlour coaches, 2 AC Lower coaches and three Economy class coaches, besides one each power van and brake van.
"These coaches have been assembled/designed at Islamabad Carriage Factory of Pakistan Railways by our own engineers, while the equipment has been imported from China," he said. One of the salient features of this non-stop service is that its journey time has been reduced to 3 hours and 45 minutes which earlier was 5 to 5-30 hours, the GM pointed out.
Some of other key features of the service are: special concession/reduction in fare on return reservation ie Rs 20 per person each way; special concession of Rs 20 per person in AC parlour for reservation of 15 days prior to the departure of the train.
However, a passenger will have to pay Rs 20 per ticket extra fare in case of reservation during the last 48 hours. The passengers would also be served with snacks and cold drinks free of charge while complimentary newspapers will also be provided to the passengers of AC parlour.
This package is prevalent world-wide, but it is being introduced for the first time in Pakistan, Khan said.
The GM said that journalists would also be given concession in ticket, while reservation on privilege passes would not be allowed. About the fare, he said it would be Rs 360 for AC parlour, Rs 240 for Lower AC and Rs 130 per person for Economy class.
"We also plan to introduce a not-stop service between Karachi and Faisalabad from September this year which is a very lucrative route and will add substantial revenue to the department," Aurangzeb said.
He said that in the first 20 days of the new financial year, "our revenue for the freight service came to Rs 177 million, which is not only above the figure for the same period of previous year but is also higher than the target. He said that in the first 10 days of July this year, passenger service earnings came to Rs 124 million as compared to Rs 83 million of the same period of last year, while freight service revenues for first 10 days of July stood at 127 million against Rs 99 million of the same period of last year.