President Asif Ali Zardari has summoned an urgent meeting of Railways officials at the Aiwan-e-Sadr Tuesday to take stock of the deteriorating situation of Pakistan Railways and decide about the remedial measures. The meeting has been summoned after the president took serious notice of the media reports about daily cancellation of trains, delayed arrival and departure, shortage of engines and coaches and no finances to buy oil. According to officials, 115 trains were temporarily closed on Monday alone due to shortage of engines. They said the department has no spare parts and resources to purchase oil and repair the engines which have gone out of order. Senior Railways officials said that they would brief the president about all the ills in the department which have led to deterioration. They pointed out that while the department has closed hundreds of trains in the past two years that reduced the earning, the staff is there and there is a heavy pressure on payment of salaries and pension. As a result salaries and pensions are being delayed forcing the employees to stage protests. Thousands of people have also been inducted in the Railways in the past few years and they have no job. Some reports say that a large number of employees go to office only to draw their pay and have no work. The officials also admitted that there are pensioners as well who have died but their pension is being drawn regularly. They said the whole system is in a mess and needed a large scale retrenchment and overhauling if the major source of transportation is to be revitalized. On the other hand, passengers interviewed by INP said that Railways is the major source of transportation of passengers and goods and they find it almost impossible to get seats on mail trains particularly for Karachi whenever they go for booking. They said the main reason of deterioration of Railways is corruption at every level.