LAHORE   -  Federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed inaugurated a new nonstop train on Lahore-Faisalabad Monday. The minister told the media that 10 new trains would be launched within 100 days.

The new train 119/Up-120/Down Faisalabad non-stop consisted of five economy coaches – an AC parlour, a business class and an AC standard.

It will leave Lahore at 8:00am and reach Faisalabad at 10:00am. The train will leave Faisalabad at 2:30pm and reach Lahore at 4:30pm.

The economy class fare is Rs190, AC-standard Rs400, parlour class Rs500 and AC-business Rs 600.

 “The Railways will put in place measures to increase number of passengers from 50 million to 70 million,” he said.

The PR would take steps to acquire technology and equipments for running the trains safely in foggy conditions, the maintained.

He added that they would also increase the number of freight wagons from 12 to 15 to facilitate he people and make the department profitable.

He said since Pakistan Railways was the backbone of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), new railway track would be laid up to Gwadar under CPEC. The minister said they would adopt an international formula for the development and growth of the PR.

Also, Reuters quoted the minister as saying Islamabad cut the size of the biggest Chinese ‘Silk Road’ project in Pakistan by $2 billion. He cited government concerns about the country’s debt levels.

The megaproject to revamp the colonial-era line stretching 1,872 km (1,163 miles) from Karachi to the northwestern city of Peshawar was initially priced at $8.2 billion, but wrangling over costs has led to delays.

The changes are part of Islamabad’s efforts to rethink key Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Pakistan, where Beijing has pledged about $60 billion in financing but the new government of populist Prime Minister Imran Khan appears to be more cautious about the Chinese investment. “Pakistan is a poor country that cannot afford huge burden of the loans,” Rasheed said.

“Therefore, we have reduced the loan from China under CPEC for rail projects from $8.2 billion to $6.2 billion,” he added, referring to CPEC.

He said the government remains committed to the Karachi-Peshawar Main Line-1 (ML-1) project but added that he wishes to further reduce the cost to $4.2 billion from $6.2 billion.

Islamabad has balked at the financing terms and has pushed for deeply concessional loans for ML-1. It also invited third countries to join or for the Chinese to be investors in the project through the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model that would rely less on debt.