From The St. Augustine Record: Railfest offers weekend fun in PalatkaPosted: October 12, 2011 - 11:09pm
Putnam County News
Train buffs, take note — the annual Palatka Railfest is this Saturday and Sunday.
The 2011 train show offers model trains and supplies, railroad collectibles and memorabilia at Palatka’s historic Union Station and the Price-Martin Center off U.S. 17 (Reid Street). It’s really simple to find since when you get to the railroad tracks you’ve found the train station.
Hosted by the Palatka Railroad Preservation Society, the show is a bargain — no admission charge and free parking. You can also enjoy the David Browning Railroad Museum which includes Railrodeo, created by Irvin P. Saylor. The retired newspaper photographer spent years building the exhibit which was billed as the “world’s largest mobile HO scale model railroad” when it began touring the East Coast in 1975.
Railfest is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. Go to www.railsofpalatka.org.
Don’t forget longtime Palatka resident Clint Snyder is turning 90 and his family is inviting friends to join them in celebrating the event this Saturday.
Sons Bill and Don Snyder are cooking up the plans for the reception at First Presbyterian Church’s fellowship hall at 2:30 p.m.
Clint is a former businessman and Putnam County property appraiser who has been anything but retiring in his retirement. He and his late wife, Elizabeth Wolfenden Snyder, started up what has become the Conlee-Snyder Mural Committee, the group responsible for all those great-looking murals on the walls of downtown Palatka.
It’s down to the wire, but you can still get a chance on a .22 rifle and help the Putnam County 4-H livestock judging team raise money to take them to nationals.
Drawing is Friday, but you can make a $5 donation at WPLK and possibly win a gift card for a Savage Arms .22 LR rifle. Even if you don’t need a rifle, you can always give a donation.
Best part about the whole story is that the livestock judging team is all-girl and all in the family. Team members are Courtney Adams, Ashley Adams, Megen Plymel and Shelby Plymel.
Reservations are needed for a lyrical evening as Florida School of the Arts students perform “An Evening of Musical Theatre Favorites” today through Sunday.
Music ranges from “Oklahoma” to “West Side Story” and represents musicals between 1945 and 1960.
Admission is free, but because the performances are in the studio theater seating is limited. The shows are at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. Call 386-312-4300 for details and reservations. The school is on the Palatka campus of St. Johns River State College.
On Sunday you may want to make the drive to Interlachen and enjoy Autumn Leaves, A Cabaret Musicale! As the West Putnam Arts Committee hosts a festive fund raiser.
Advance tickets are $10 or can be bought at the door for $15. A wine-and-cheese reception is from 4-5 p.m. with the concert beginning at 6 p.m. Hors d’oevres and sweets will be available at the concert as will door prizes. The event is at Historic Interlachen Hall.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Myrtle Beach, SC: model train show - this Saturday and Sunday!
From The Sun News Kicks: All aboard for model train show!
The Grand Strand Model Railroaders need only two words for their second annual show: “All aboard!”
The club’s exhibition is 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at the Lakewood Camping Resort Conference Center, on U.S. 17 Business, between Myrtle Beach and Surfside Beach.
Joe Corsetti of Carolina Forest, the club’s public relations officer, said the inaugural show last autumn at the conference center drew 1,500 patrons over two days.
“In the club, we love to share our knowledge,” Corsetti said. “It’s great to see people have a smile on their face and people relive their youth.”
He said one older woman told him how visiting the show reminded her of her childhood, and that her father, who had just passed away, would set up a family train set every Christmas.
“It’s a great hobby,” said Corsetti, noting that people never grow out of the fun of playing with model trains – year round, not just at Christmastime. He started “modeling trains” 30 years ago.
This Grand Strand train extravaganza resulted from Corsetti and three other club members who had vendor’s sales at the Cape Fear Model Railroad Society’s annual show in Wilmington, N.C.
“I’m driving home thinking, ‘Why can’t our club do this?’ ” he said.
After the Grand Strand club voted to proceed, Corsetti went to other regional shows, making stops in Savannah, Ga.; New Bern, N.C.; and back up to Wilmington. While meeting other host officials, scouting for ideas and explaining the Grand Strand group’s plans, Corsetti said one man seconded the motion instantly.
“He said it’s about time somebody’s doing something like this in Myrtle Beach,” Corsetti said.
Staging this show in October, when “the weather’s still good,” and before the Christmas shopping season heats up, makes for an ideal timetable, Corsetti said.
Ride starts in youth
Ed Sharrett of Myrtle Beach, the club’s president, joined soon after its founding a quarter-century ago. The ages of its 40 members range from 18 to 91, hailing from as far as Murrells Inlet and Brunswick County, N.C.
Sharrett said his father punched his ticket to model trains as a pastime. His dad had bought a train for Christmas 1941, soon after tying the knot.
“My mother about killed him,” Sharrett said of that moment seven years before his birth. “He put $1 down, and paid $1 a week.”
Sharrett said he carried his own interest in toy trains into adulthood, “but I put them away for a little bit while I was in the Air Force.”
While stationed in Turkey amid a 20-year career, which included assignments in 1976-77 and 1987-88 at the former Myrtle Beach Air Force base, Sharrett’s wife surprised him with a small, N-scale train set.
“It didn’t take up a lot of space,” the retired technical sergeant said.
He has since given his daughter’s family a big G-gauge train set when his grandson was born. It made an impression.
“He’ll sit there and watch the train go around and around,” Sharrett said.
Youth today are into model trains, he said, thanks to storybook characters such as Thomas the Tank Engine.
“Kids know Thomas,” Sharrett said. “My grandson’s into it.”
On a larger scale, the club tows a modular layout inside a 5-by-10-foot trailer designed like a “little red caboose” for visits across the area at schools and assisted living sites. Look for its return to the show this weekend.
Another display, about 4 square feet, lets children sit inside, like they’re driving a locomotive, sound a whistle, and play with a throttle made from an old shower handle.
“It was a big hit last year,” Sharrett said. “We got pictures of grandparents sitting in it with kids.”
Art in landscaping
Already packing boxes last week for the 2011 show, Sharrett said he plans to give about seven clinics to show the art of “weathering” landscapes in train sets. That will cover how to build fences and trees, and the tools needed to build train-set accessories and take care of them.
Riding in the countryside also inspires Sharrett. At the 2010 show, he shared a water tower he had modeled after a structure he photographed in Weldon, N.C.
“I saw it out of the blue,” he said, “probably 30 feet tall, and 40 feet in diameter.”
Vines had covered one side so Sharrett created his train-set piece to reflect that feature and showed the photo to illustrate comparisons to the real-life scenery. Having pictures also helps when “weathering mountains” and other settings, he said.
Corsetti and Sharrett both said how proceeds from their annual weekend shows go right into building up the clubhouse, which this past summer was moved into larger, more accessible quarters in the Myrtle Beach mall, near Briarcliffe Acres.
“It’s a constant work in progress,” Corsetti said, welcoming the public to stop in Mondays and Saturdays to see the building and expansion of model train layouts, including a running Lionel set.
The store site, like the Lakewood Conference Center, gives the club enough room to let the trains roll, and all on one floor.
Claude McSwain, director of conferences at Lakewood, said the club uses all of its 7,800 square feet for its show weekends.
“You’d be surprised how many adults are into model trains,” he said. “We have some people who stay on the campground that weekend just to see the train show.”
McSwain said a train show, like a doll show there last Saturday, and other regular events provide families opportunities to “have a ball” together.
“We’re looking to have more of these shows,” he said.
Trains touch Brookgreen
Corsetti said a visit by Robin Salmon, Brookgreen Gardens’ vice president for collections and curator of sculptures, at the 2010 train show led to an invitation to set up a train layout for Christmas last year.
“That gave us more publicity,” Corsetti said.
Salmon said so many people have had trains “under the tree” as a present or as part of the festive décor of the season.
Brookgreen sets up Christmas trees to depict different eras, such as pre-World War II, so a Lionel train model fits the décor perfectly.
Salmon named many reasons why trains enhance Brookgreen’s Christmastime displays. She said the father of Arthur Huntington, from the gardens’ founding family, built a fortune from helping plot the Transcontinental Railroad in the late 19th century.
Nostalgia for the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s also lays the track for model trains, along with their connection “to the theme of the songs of the season,” Salmon said.
Brookgreen staff already has collaborated on setting up train sets – including some borrowed from volunteers – for “Nights of a Thousand Candles,” which opens Dec. 2, and the “Signs of the Season in Art and History” exhibit Nov. 26-Jan. 2.
“The idea with our holiday exhibits,” Salmon said, “is we want to appeal to all ages of people, and of various backgrounds, and that trains sort of cover all those bases.”
The Grand Strand Model Railroaders need only two words for their second annual show: “All aboard!”
The club’s exhibition is 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at the Lakewood Camping Resort Conference Center, on U.S. 17 Business, between Myrtle Beach and Surfside Beach.
Joe Corsetti of Carolina Forest, the club’s public relations officer, said the inaugural show last autumn at the conference center drew 1,500 patrons over two days.
“In the club, we love to share our knowledge,” Corsetti said. “It’s great to see people have a smile on their face and people relive their youth.”
He said one older woman told him how visiting the show reminded her of her childhood, and that her father, who had just passed away, would set up a family train set every Christmas.
“It’s a great hobby,” said Corsetti, noting that people never grow out of the fun of playing with model trains – year round, not just at Christmastime. He started “modeling trains” 30 years ago.
This Grand Strand train extravaganza resulted from Corsetti and three other club members who had vendor’s sales at the Cape Fear Model Railroad Society’s annual show in Wilmington, N.C.
“I’m driving home thinking, ‘Why can’t our club do this?’ ” he said.
After the Grand Strand club voted to proceed, Corsetti went to other regional shows, making stops in Savannah, Ga.; New Bern, N.C.; and back up to Wilmington. While meeting other host officials, scouting for ideas and explaining the Grand Strand group’s plans, Corsetti said one man seconded the motion instantly.
“He said it’s about time somebody’s doing something like this in Myrtle Beach,” Corsetti said.
Staging this show in October, when “the weather’s still good,” and before the Christmas shopping season heats up, makes for an ideal timetable, Corsetti said.
Ride starts in youth
Ed Sharrett of Myrtle Beach, the club’s president, joined soon after its founding a quarter-century ago. The ages of its 40 members range from 18 to 91, hailing from as far as Murrells Inlet and Brunswick County, N.C.
Sharrett said his father punched his ticket to model trains as a pastime. His dad had bought a train for Christmas 1941, soon after tying the knot.
“My mother about killed him,” Sharrett said of that moment seven years before his birth. “He put $1 down, and paid $1 a week.”
Sharrett said he carried his own interest in toy trains into adulthood, “but I put them away for a little bit while I was in the Air Force.”
While stationed in Turkey amid a 20-year career, which included assignments in 1976-77 and 1987-88 at the former Myrtle Beach Air Force base, Sharrett’s wife surprised him with a small, N-scale train set.
“It didn’t take up a lot of space,” the retired technical sergeant said.
He has since given his daughter’s family a big G-gauge train set when his grandson was born. It made an impression.
“He’ll sit there and watch the train go around and around,” Sharrett said.
Youth today are into model trains, he said, thanks to storybook characters such as Thomas the Tank Engine.
“Kids know Thomas,” Sharrett said. “My grandson’s into it.”
On a larger scale, the club tows a modular layout inside a 5-by-10-foot trailer designed like a “little red caboose” for visits across the area at schools and assisted living sites. Look for its return to the show this weekend.
Another display, about 4 square feet, lets children sit inside, like they’re driving a locomotive, sound a whistle, and play with a throttle made from an old shower handle.
“It was a big hit last year,” Sharrett said. “We got pictures of grandparents sitting in it with kids.”
Art in landscaping
Already packing boxes last week for the 2011 show, Sharrett said he plans to give about seven clinics to show the art of “weathering” landscapes in train sets. That will cover how to build fences and trees, and the tools needed to build train-set accessories and take care of them.
Riding in the countryside also inspires Sharrett. At the 2010 show, he shared a water tower he had modeled after a structure he photographed in Weldon, N.C.
“I saw it out of the blue,” he said, “probably 30 feet tall, and 40 feet in diameter.”
Vines had covered one side so Sharrett created his train-set piece to reflect that feature and showed the photo to illustrate comparisons to the real-life scenery. Having pictures also helps when “weathering mountains” and other settings, he said.
Corsetti and Sharrett both said how proceeds from their annual weekend shows go right into building up the clubhouse, which this past summer was moved into larger, more accessible quarters in the Myrtle Beach mall, near Briarcliffe Acres.
“It’s a constant work in progress,” Corsetti said, welcoming the public to stop in Mondays and Saturdays to see the building and expansion of model train layouts, including a running Lionel set.
The store site, like the Lakewood Conference Center, gives the club enough room to let the trains roll, and all on one floor.
Claude McSwain, director of conferences at Lakewood, said the club uses all of its 7,800 square feet for its show weekends.
“You’d be surprised how many adults are into model trains,” he said. “We have some people who stay on the campground that weekend just to see the train show.”
McSwain said a train show, like a doll show there last Saturday, and other regular events provide families opportunities to “have a ball” together.
“We’re looking to have more of these shows,” he said.
Trains touch Brookgreen
Corsetti said a visit by Robin Salmon, Brookgreen Gardens’ vice president for collections and curator of sculptures, at the 2010 train show led to an invitation to set up a train layout for Christmas last year.
“That gave us more publicity,” Corsetti said.
Salmon said so many people have had trains “under the tree” as a present or as part of the festive décor of the season.
Brookgreen sets up Christmas trees to depict different eras, such as pre-World War II, so a Lionel train model fits the décor perfectly.
Salmon named many reasons why trains enhance Brookgreen’s Christmastime displays. She said the father of Arthur Huntington, from the gardens’ founding family, built a fortune from helping plot the Transcontinental Railroad in the late 19th century.
Nostalgia for the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s also lays the track for model trains, along with their connection “to the theme of the songs of the season,” Salmon said.
Brookgreen staff already has collaborated on setting up train sets – including some borrowed from volunteers – for “Nights of a Thousand Candles,” which opens Dec. 2, and the “Signs of the Season in Art and History” exhibit Nov. 26-Jan. 2.
“The idea with our holiday exhibits,” Salmon said, “is we want to appeal to all ages of people, and of various backgrounds, and that trains sort of cover all those bases.”
If you go
What | Second annual Model Train Show
Who | Grand Strand Model Railroaders Inc.
When | 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday
Where | Lakewood Camping Resort Conference Center, 5901 S. Kings Highway, south of Myrtle Beach, between Myrtle Beach State Park and S.C. 544
How much | $5 ages 13 and older, $3 ages 6-12, and free ages 5 and younger
Information | 297-7162 or 293-4386
Also | See train displays again starting next week – 4-7 p.m. Mondays and 10-4 p.m. Saturdays – for free at the model train club’s site in Myrtle Beach mall, at U.S. 17 and S.C. 22, near Briarcliffe Acres, three doors from Bass Pro Shops
Gauges by the numbers
Gauge measures the width of a track, and scale compares the size difference in ratio between a model and the real article.
1:48 | The scale of O-gauge trains, with 11/4 inches between the rails, and produced by Lionel since 1915.
1.87 | Scale of HO gauge, 5/8 inches wide – exactly half the size of O gauge – and the most popular on the market.
1:160 | N gauge, the second most popular gauge after HO.
1:220 | Z, the latest gauge from Europe.
Source: Lionel (www.lionel.com)
Saturday, October 8, 2011
On travel til Wednesday
I'm visiting elderly relatives in Box Elder, SD who do not have internet.
Will try to sneak out now and again to an internet cafe to post, but more than likely will not be posting until Wedneday.
Will try to sneak out now and again to an internet cafe to post, but more than likely will not be posting until Wedneday.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Medford, Oregon: On The Right Track
From Newswatch 12: On The Right Track
By Ron Brown
By Ron Brown
WHITE CITY, Ore. -- A small White City company, that pioneered technology used to make model trains more realistic, says it is on-track to recover from the recession. Kadee Quality Products Company prides it's self as producing products entirely of U.S. materials in the United States, mostly right here in Southern Oregon.
Hidden among the plywood mills and other manufacturing facilities in White City, Kadee Quality Products Company is celebrating their 65th anniversary this year. This is a do-it-all-yourself company makes model railroading equipment: cars, couplers...everything. This includes much of the machinery used to make and put these meticulously detailed railcars together.
Slightly fewer than 30 employees design, manufacture, and package all the parts needed to make these model train cars. Plastic scraps are re-melted to make more parts. Zinc used for many of the metal pieces also gets recycled. Dies and molds used to form the wheels and undercarriages are all made here. So are the tiny springs. Signage on the cars is an exact miniature duplication of the real thing...sometimes based on photos since many of these cars are from the golden age of steam and early diesel era.
You'd probably never know just driving by that this rather non-descript building in White City is where some of the best model railroad cars in the entire world are actually made, right here in White City, and all 100% American. Kadee emphasizes that their products are not toys for children, but are actually model railroad cars and parts. Their website and brochures say "not for children under 14 years of age."
They are distributed worldwide, and wholly made in the U.S.
October 22: Powder Springs, GA: Powder Springs Model Railroad Joins 'Pilgrimage'
From Powder Springs Patch: Powder Springs Model Railroad Joins 'Pilgrimage'
Powder Springs own “For the Birds Railroad”—FTB RR for short—will be joining this year’s Piedmont Pilgrimage, a free annual tour of Georgia model trains.
Throughout October and November, those who have the systems set up inside or outside their houses will welcome anyone interested in watching their trains chug along. The event is organized by the Piedmont Division of the National Model Railroad Association.
Each railroad has a specific time for accepting visitors. FTB RR, the only representative from Powder Springs, will be open on Oct. 22 from 1 to 5 p.m.
It’s located at 3290 Country Walk Drive and is operated by Ra and Barbara Barr.
“We’ve spruced it up a little bit, and we’ve added a few things,” Barbara said. “So we’re excited for people to come see it.”
Barr said anyone inside Powder Springs and out is welcome to come see the couple’s miniature locomotives during the tour.
Since Patch put together the attached video in June, Barr said she’s added a schoolhouse, playground, coffee shop, and cemetery with a church in the town the train goes around.
Powder Springs own “For the Birds Railroad”—FTB RR for short—will be joining this year’s Piedmont Pilgrimage, a free annual tour of Georgia model trains.
Throughout October and November, those who have the systems set up inside or outside their houses will welcome anyone interested in watching their trains chug along. The event is organized by the Piedmont Division of the National Model Railroad Association.
Each railroad has a specific time for accepting visitors. FTB RR, the only representative from Powder Springs, will be open on Oct. 22 from 1 to 5 p.m.
It’s located at 3290 Country Walk Drive and is operated by Ra and Barbara Barr.
“We’ve spruced it up a little bit, and we’ve added a few things,” Barbara said. “So we’re excited for people to come see it.”
Barr said anyone inside Powder Springs and out is welcome to come see the couple’s miniature locomotives during the tour.
Since Patch put together the attached video in June, Barr said she’s added a schoolhouse, playground, coffee shop, and cemetery with a church in the town the train goes around.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Model railroaders set up shop inside Myrtle Beach Mall
SC Now.com: Model railroaders set up shop inside Myrtle Beach Mall
MYRTLE BEACH - Ed Sharrett said he and his fellow Grand Strand Model Railroaders Club members can put up a portable N scale railroad layout in about 45 minutes. He said they take it to shows and demonstrations at nursing homes and schools.
Now, it's set up permanently at Myrtle Beach Mall.
The club is renting a storefront location just down from the mall entrance to Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, and while it's far from complete inside, Sharrett says it's already yielding positive results.
"We've gotten a lot more traffic," he said. "We've had over 1,000 people come in the month and a half we've been open."
But Sharrett also said the new store gives the club and its members a chance to expand and improve the layouts it used for decades in the old space above Ed's Hobby Shop near Five Points in Myrtle Beach.
"It's given a lot more people more stuff to do," said Sharrett. The club is working on an expanded and permanent N scale layout, an HO scale layout, and a Lionel layout.
"A lot of guys are hesitant to build anything (at home), because they don't know how to build it," said Sharrett. "This gives them the opportunity to learn how to do it," he said.
The store also allows the mall to expand the "entertainment" part of the retail experience it can offer customers. The model railroad store is located in a wing near the Lunar Mini Golf and the soon-to-open Let's Go Racing remote-controlled car store.
"It's family entertainment and it generates some traffic here in the mall for us," said Matt Morris with the mall's management office. "We're looking forward to this whole wing and our strategy of becoming more retail entertainment," he said.
The Grand Strand Model Railroaders Club is also gearing up for its upcoming annual show in Myrtle Beach. This weekend's show is Saturday, October 15 and Sunday, October 16 at Lakewood Conference Center on U.S. Highway 17.
MYRTLE BEACH - Ed Sharrett said he and his fellow Grand Strand Model Railroaders Club members can put up a portable N scale railroad layout in about 45 minutes. He said they take it to shows and demonstrations at nursing homes and schools.
Now, it's set up permanently at Myrtle Beach Mall.
The club is renting a storefront location just down from the mall entrance to Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, and while it's far from complete inside, Sharrett says it's already yielding positive results.
"We've gotten a lot more traffic," he said. "We've had over 1,000 people come in the month and a half we've been open."
But Sharrett also said the new store gives the club and its members a chance to expand and improve the layouts it used for decades in the old space above Ed's Hobby Shop near Five Points in Myrtle Beach.
"It's given a lot more people more stuff to do," said Sharrett. The club is working on an expanded and permanent N scale layout, an HO scale layout, and a Lionel layout.
"A lot of guys are hesitant to build anything (at home), because they don't know how to build it," said Sharrett. "This gives them the opportunity to learn how to do it," he said.
The store also allows the mall to expand the "entertainment" part of the retail experience it can offer customers. The model railroad store is located in a wing near the Lunar Mini Golf and the soon-to-open Let's Go Racing remote-controlled car store.
"It's family entertainment and it generates some traffic here in the mall for us," said Matt Morris with the mall's management office. "We're looking forward to this whole wing and our strategy of becoming more retail entertainment," he said.
The Grand Strand Model Railroaders Club is also gearing up for its upcoming annual show in Myrtle Beach. This weekend's show is Saturday, October 15 and Sunday, October 16 at Lakewood Conference Center on U.S. Highway 17.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Train News: Modernization of Railways (Pakistan)
From Pak Tribune: Modernization of Railways
Railway is a relatively inexpensive and handy mode of traveling for the middle and lower middle classes in Pakistan. But due to neglect and lack of any planning for its improvement this vital medium of traveling has been deteriorating.
A stage has arrived now when the engines are failing, the bogies are breaking down. The diesel is not enough, the trains derail, accidents take place and the delays are frequent. In Pakistan there is no notable improvement in the railway system since 1947 when the British left.
Sadly the successive governments have seldom thought of modernizing the railways that is the major, the most affordable and cheap form of travelling for the common people of Pakistan. Instead that the railways should have improved and expanded keeping in view the needs of growing populations, it has been worsening with the time passage.
Now a dismal stage has arrived where the engines are becoming dysfunctional because of the excessive use. The bogies are getting obsolete and decrepit because there was no addition or replacement of the old and ramshackle carriages.
At some point of time a railway carriage factory was established near Islamabad. But ever since its inception, it has been encountering one problem after another. The necessary initiatives for running it on productive lines or with a deep sense of obligation have always been deficient. This railway carriage factory looks like a dead or dying horse with no signs of revival.
Pakistan can learn from Germany or China how to operate an efficient and flawless railways system. A delegation of experts in locomotives should be sent to Germany to understand and imbibe the mechanism and operational procedures by which they operate their railways. In Germany and also elsewhere in Europe the trains are seldom late or the engines fail. The train would arrive at the railway stations by dot. The doors would automatically open and close. The latrines are clean; the railway stations are immaculately free of any encroachments or surfeit of coolies.
The passengers have the allotted seats. The signals are automatic and the communications between the railways stations is computerized. The carriages or bogies are sparkling and neat. There is always a complete decorum and orderliness at railways stations. There is no solicitation or bribe for buying tickets. There is always plenty of space for parking outside the railway stations.
I have mentioned some of the features of the most remarkable railways system being operated in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The railway tracks are invariably two ways, unlike Pakistan where a train has to wait till the other train clears the other track for the movement. Let us now ponder as to what could be the immediate steps to make Pakistan’s railway workable and truly efficient.
Without fail and further loss of time there should be two tracks laid out between Karachi and Peshawar. There should also be two tracks between the junction lines and the main railway stations.
The delegation should study the railway operations in Germany with entire focus on main railway stations such as Frankfurt, Munich or Hannover. That should serve as a model for the Pakistan Railways to adopt. A model railway station should be created in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi or Peshawar with all the attendant facilities that are provided in Germany or in other cities of Europe.
A Chinese model can also be copied and implemented. Rather it would be more handy and useful for the Chinese experts to put up a model railway station in one of the big cities of Pakistan.
The modern railway system in various countries is operated with the latest technology for signals, for movement of trains between the stations and for ticketing. These railways stations that I have seen and in which I travelled in European cities, are a treat to the eyes. The trains are seldom late whether for arrival or departure because the whole system is automatic and computerized.
The trains to be run under the new system in Pakistan should have air-conditioning and heating systems for summer and winters. There should be no classifications of carriages into first, second or third class as that is the legacy of the imperialist past. One bogie should be for special passengers who should pay more than the normal train fares.
If the state owned railway carriage factory is moribund and is not in full production or is plagued with administrative problems or paucity of funds, it should be sold to the private sector. In that situation the government will be free from financial burden and can purchase the carriages from the buyers of this factory whose owners would ensure optimum output for windfall profits and good business.
If the factories for manufacturing railway engines cannot be set up for the time being these should be imported in bulk, against credit or cash from China and Turkey: the two friendly countries.
The cleanliness in trains and on the platforms should be an article of faith for the managers and operators of the railway system. At present the toilet in trains and on railway stations are invariably and repulsively filthy and kept dirty for days together. These should be equipped with flush and underground sewerage systems.
The carriages should be designed as we can find in developed countries that have separate seats besides restaurants. There should be no turbaned vendors climbing up or alighting from the trains with food trays. That is also a loathsome tradition of the British era. The coolie system should be discarded as it is a disgrace to the humanity.
All the present force of coolies should be provided jobs in various railways departments and no more coolies should be hired. The trolleys system that one sees at various railways stations elsewhere is the best for anyone to move luggage to the train by paying a small amount.
All trains should be run on electricity for which an entire exclusive power generation system should be created for the railways. If main power grids fluctuate or trip then the alternate generation system should be fuel operated or from rental units. But it should provide round the clock and never failing supply of electricity.
The railway stations should be cleared of all vendors and they should run their businesses on a corner or outside the main railway station building so that they do not create obstacles in the movement of the passengers.
Usually the modern railway stations are covered including the places where the trains stop and start. This facility can be created at the first model railway station and depending upon the availability of funds can be gradually expanded to all the major railway stations.
The railway lands that have been grabbed by the land mafias should be retrieved without any hesitation. This land can be disposed off for raising funds to meet the huge expenditure that would be involved in creating a new modern trouble-free railway system in Pakistan.
The railway should be a freeway railway with no cross stops for the vehicles to pass. All the pedestrian crossings and those of vehicles should have automatic barriers that should close before the passing of train and open after it has passed.
The failure and deterioration of the railway system in Pakistan over the years is due largely to the dirty tricks and intrigues of the road transporters who want to capitalize on the failure and dysfunction of a prime cheap system of passengers’ travel in Pakistan. The transporters’ mafia is the strongest in Pakistan as these are people who are top notches in businesses, in government and in power.
As a result of their anti- railway machinations and insidious campaigning, the railway has reached this appalling state of debility and paralysis and acute mal-functioning. Also the steel mafia has been active to buy railway tracks by getting many junction railway lines closed and their steel tracks sold out in the markets.
This criminal anti-people and anti- railway greed perpetrated by the steel mill owners in tandem with the high railway authorities including the successive railway ministers have been going on for years together. The railway lines to such cities as Chakwal were dismantled at the behest of one of the railway ministers who was also a retired army general.
The delegation and the task force on overhauling and modernizing the railways should prepare the plan that should be promptly approved by the government and implemented without wasting further time. This might prove as a feather in the cap of any government that is conscious and concerned about the present awful state of affairs in Pakistan Railways.
Railway is a relatively inexpensive and handy mode of traveling for the middle and lower middle classes in Pakistan. But due to neglect and lack of any planning for its improvement this vital medium of traveling has been deteriorating.
A stage has arrived now when the engines are failing, the bogies are breaking down. The diesel is not enough, the trains derail, accidents take place and the delays are frequent. In Pakistan there is no notable improvement in the railway system since 1947 when the British left.
Sadly the successive governments have seldom thought of modernizing the railways that is the major, the most affordable and cheap form of travelling for the common people of Pakistan. Instead that the railways should have improved and expanded keeping in view the needs of growing populations, it has been worsening with the time passage.
Now a dismal stage has arrived where the engines are becoming dysfunctional because of the excessive use. The bogies are getting obsolete and decrepit because there was no addition or replacement of the old and ramshackle carriages.
At some point of time a railway carriage factory was established near Islamabad. But ever since its inception, it has been encountering one problem after another. The necessary initiatives for running it on productive lines or with a deep sense of obligation have always been deficient. This railway carriage factory looks like a dead or dying horse with no signs of revival.
Pakistan can learn from Germany or China how to operate an efficient and flawless railways system. A delegation of experts in locomotives should be sent to Germany to understand and imbibe the mechanism and operational procedures by which they operate their railways. In Germany and also elsewhere in Europe the trains are seldom late or the engines fail. The train would arrive at the railway stations by dot. The doors would automatically open and close. The latrines are clean; the railway stations are immaculately free of any encroachments or surfeit of coolies.
The passengers have the allotted seats. The signals are automatic and the communications between the railways stations is computerized. The carriages or bogies are sparkling and neat. There is always a complete decorum and orderliness at railways stations. There is no solicitation or bribe for buying tickets. There is always plenty of space for parking outside the railway stations.
I have mentioned some of the features of the most remarkable railways system being operated in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The railway tracks are invariably two ways, unlike Pakistan where a train has to wait till the other train clears the other track for the movement. Let us now ponder as to what could be the immediate steps to make Pakistan’s railway workable and truly efficient.
Without fail and further loss of time there should be two tracks laid out between Karachi and Peshawar. There should also be two tracks between the junction lines and the main railway stations.
The delegation should study the railway operations in Germany with entire focus on main railway stations such as Frankfurt, Munich or Hannover. That should serve as a model for the Pakistan Railways to adopt. A model railway station should be created in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi or Peshawar with all the attendant facilities that are provided in Germany or in other cities of Europe.
A Chinese model can also be copied and implemented. Rather it would be more handy and useful for the Chinese experts to put up a model railway station in one of the big cities of Pakistan.
The modern railway system in various countries is operated with the latest technology for signals, for movement of trains between the stations and for ticketing. These railways stations that I have seen and in which I travelled in European cities, are a treat to the eyes. The trains are seldom late whether for arrival or departure because the whole system is automatic and computerized.
The trains to be run under the new system in Pakistan should have air-conditioning and heating systems for summer and winters. There should be no classifications of carriages into first, second or third class as that is the legacy of the imperialist past. One bogie should be for special passengers who should pay more than the normal train fares.
If the state owned railway carriage factory is moribund and is not in full production or is plagued with administrative problems or paucity of funds, it should be sold to the private sector. In that situation the government will be free from financial burden and can purchase the carriages from the buyers of this factory whose owners would ensure optimum output for windfall profits and good business.
If the factories for manufacturing railway engines cannot be set up for the time being these should be imported in bulk, against credit or cash from China and Turkey: the two friendly countries.
The cleanliness in trains and on the platforms should be an article of faith for the managers and operators of the railway system. At present the toilet in trains and on railway stations are invariably and repulsively filthy and kept dirty for days together. These should be equipped with flush and underground sewerage systems.
The carriages should be designed as we can find in developed countries that have separate seats besides restaurants. There should be no turbaned vendors climbing up or alighting from the trains with food trays. That is also a loathsome tradition of the British era. The coolie system should be discarded as it is a disgrace to the humanity.
All the present force of coolies should be provided jobs in various railways departments and no more coolies should be hired. The trolleys system that one sees at various railways stations elsewhere is the best for anyone to move luggage to the train by paying a small amount.
All trains should be run on electricity for which an entire exclusive power generation system should be created for the railways. If main power grids fluctuate or trip then the alternate generation system should be fuel operated or from rental units. But it should provide round the clock and never failing supply of electricity.
The railway stations should be cleared of all vendors and they should run their businesses on a corner or outside the main railway station building so that they do not create obstacles in the movement of the passengers.
Usually the modern railway stations are covered including the places where the trains stop and start. This facility can be created at the first model railway station and depending upon the availability of funds can be gradually expanded to all the major railway stations.
The railway lands that have been grabbed by the land mafias should be retrieved without any hesitation. This land can be disposed off for raising funds to meet the huge expenditure that would be involved in creating a new modern trouble-free railway system in Pakistan.
The railway should be a freeway railway with no cross stops for the vehicles to pass. All the pedestrian crossings and those of vehicles should have automatic barriers that should close before the passing of train and open after it has passed.
The failure and deterioration of the railway system in Pakistan over the years is due largely to the dirty tricks and intrigues of the road transporters who want to capitalize on the failure and dysfunction of a prime cheap system of passengers’ travel in Pakistan. The transporters’ mafia is the strongest in Pakistan as these are people who are top notches in businesses, in government and in power.
As a result of their anti- railway machinations and insidious campaigning, the railway has reached this appalling state of debility and paralysis and acute mal-functioning. Also the steel mafia has been active to buy railway tracks by getting many junction railway lines closed and their steel tracks sold out in the markets.
This criminal anti-people and anti- railway greed perpetrated by the steel mill owners in tandem with the high railway authorities including the successive railway ministers have been going on for years together. The railway lines to such cities as Chakwal were dismantled at the behest of one of the railway ministers who was also a retired army general.
The delegation and the task force on overhauling and modernizing the railways should prepare the plan that should be promptly approved by the government and implemented without wasting further time. This might prove as a feather in the cap of any government that is conscious and concerned about the present awful state of affairs in Pakistan Railways.
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