LAHORE  - An agreement has been signed between Pakistan Railway and Shalimar Group to start another train through public-private partnership.
A ceremony was held here at Railway Headquarters on Wednesday. Chairman Railway Tariq Azeem and Head of Shalimar Group Rana Rafaqat signed the agreement. According to the agreement, an overnight “Night Coach” train consisting of 14 coaches, including one AC sleeper coach, two AC standard, seven economy class coaches, one power van, one luggage van, one AC dining car and one brake van, are planed to run on a daily basis between Lahore and Karachi Cantt via Faisalabad and Multan in the evening. The running time of the train between Karachi and Lahore is 18:00 hours. The commercial management of the train was outsourced in a public-private partnership through the process of advertisement, by inviting bids to M/s Shalimar Group. The private party will be responsible to bring substantive changes to value adding in the service to be provided to passengers, Pakistan Railways would provide locomotives and coaches with the standard fitting and amenities.
M/s. Shalimar Group offered a bid of Rs. 631.95 million including 70.2% earning capacity of the train. They also offered to invest Rs 81.838 million in value addition services. M/s Shalimar Group plans to deposit Rs. 100 million for repair of locomotives. The party will also deposit 10% of the contract amount per year as performance security to Pakistan Railway which will remain with Railways.  The agreement will remain in force for five years and will be extendable for another term of five years.


 on mutually agreed terms and conditions.
A sum of Rs 1,731,308 per round train journey (calculated at 70.2% capacity, normal class fare) will be deposited with the Railway on daily basis.