Pakistan Railways is planning to reconstruct 11 bridges and repair another 55 across the country to ensure the smooth operation of the trains and safety of the passengers.
The department would reconstruct three bridges in Sukkur Division, six in Multan, two in Lahore, an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP on Thursday.
Regarding the repair of bridges in different divisions, he said Pakistan Railways has planned to repair 34 bridges in Karachi, 11 in Sukkur, two in Multan, five in Rawalpindi, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta.
He said around 86 per cent of bridges are more than 100 years old but all of them were safe for train operation due to regular maintenance, rehabilitation and strengthening of these bridges.
The official said there are 13,959 major and minor bridges over the system and the design life of which varies for different years.
The standard operating procedure calls for inspection of bridges in accordance with the different schedules like monthly, quarterly, biannually and annually, he added.
To a query, the official said average 77.10 per cent of tracks are over-aged and minor repair is carried out by the department in routine to ensure the safety of the passengers.
However, he said 730-kilometre track has been rehabilitated or partially rehabilitated through the complete track, sleeper and rail renewals under various Public Sector Development Programme projects.
