'First time in history': 2 million people make it home for Eid by trains

LAHORE: Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said on Wednesday as many as 2 million people travelled their homes and native places by trains to celebrate Eidul Fitr.

In his Eid message on Twitter, he said, “For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the railway enabled 2 million people to meet and spend Eid with their loved ones.”

He said the railway pocketed a revenue of Rs1 billion and collected Rs30 million from the people travelling without tickets.

The minister urged the people to avoid travelling on the rooftops of buses and instead travel by trains as the railway is offering 50 per cent cut on all train fares on the first day of Eid.

He said it will take eight hours for the people to travel from Lahore to Karachi and two hours from Rawalpindi to Lahore once the ambitious ML-1 project, which envisages up-gradation of Peshawar to Karachi railway track, is completed.

Rasheed said the railway will make train coaches and freight wagons on its own in the future and vowed to take the department forward.

Eid Mubarak pic.twitter.com/DRccneGHpK

— Sheikh Rashid Ahmad (@ShkhRasheed) June 5, 2019