Ever since the ascent of Khawaja Saad Rafique to the slot of railways minister, Pakistan railways has visibly taken giant leaps to make its way back to its previous place of being the country’s premium transporter.

On 30 January 2014, for the first time in country’s history a freight train left Karachi for Lahore with a total weight of 3450 tons. Never in the history of the country has a railway carried such load before.

Previously the maximum capacity for such trains was 2200 tons but with the purchase of new 2000 horse power engines from China, the trains’ capacity has increased to 3500 tons per train.

Friday’s departure was just an experiment to check whether a train can pull it off.

And now railways can be used on a regular basis for transporting oil as new tank wagons from China will be more suitable for the purpose of bringing oil up the country i.e. if the railways can manage to operate efficiently.

Bravo Khawaja Sahb. You succeeded where even the Sheikh of Rawalpindi failed. Let’s just hope that you can bring back the lost glories to Pakistan railways.