Pakistan — A security guard pointing a gun at your chest may not be a
perk of first-class travel in the West, but it's all part of the
service on Pakistan's gleaming Business Express.
Thirteen
carriages have been lovingly restored into a sleek sleeper to ply the
1,200 kilometres (800 miles) between Pakistan's two biggest cities,
Lahore and Karachi, on an 18-hour journey that once used to take upwards
of 30 hours.
Presided over Friday by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani, perhaps keen to front a good-news story as he faces contempt
charges, and waved off by excited crowds it is Pakistan's most luxurious
and expensive train.
For 5,000 rupees one way ($55), or 9,000
rupees return, passengers are waited on by a bevy of attentive stewards,
as they settle down to watch films on flat-screen TVs or power up
laptops.
Afternoon tea and piping hot dinner -- courtesy of chefs
at five-star hotels are borne into cabins as uniformed guards carrying
rifles in the corridors are a reminder of a country troubled by
kidnappings, Taliban and Al-Qaeda violence.
Then as night falls, stewards come round with crisp bed linen to turn slightly hard green bunks into inviting beds.
It's
all part of a first private investment of millions of rupees in the
ailing state railways, billed as the last hope of preventing a
much-loved relic of British rule from falling into ruin.
Corruption,
mismanagement and neglect have driven Pakistan Railways to the brink.
Since Gilani's government took power in 2008, the group has retired 104
of 204 trains in a country larger than Britain and Germany combined.
It
relies on handouts of $2.8 million a month just to pay salaries and
pensions, and faces expected losses of $390 million in the current
fiscal year.
But the new train pulled away five minutes early and
customers boarded from a brand-new business lounge at Lahore station.
Decorated in tinsel, the engine then ground to a halt 10 minutes later
to pick up more passengers.
Mariyam Imran, a strikingly beautiful
young advisor for cosmetics firm L'Oreal, is delighted. A frequent
traveller and terrified by a recent emergency landing on increasingly
precarious state airline PIA, she is an avid convert.
"It's
beautiful. It's relaxing, compared to the trains before. I'm so happy
and very comfortable. The staff are good. It's a marvellous train," the
22-year-old young mother told AFP.
Travelling with her businessman
husband, three-year-old daughter and sister-in-law they are heading to
Karachi for a short break before returning to host a Valentine's Day
party at home in Lahore on February 14.
"I hate PIA. Oh my God, that emergency landing. Compared to the plane, this train is best. The service is very good."
Gilani
congratulated staff on what he called a "deluxe" and "state of the art"
service that would serve as a trail blazer for future private-public
partnerships capable of turning around Pakistan's depressed economy.
"It's
a big, big initiative from the private sector, which we have welcomed
with open arms," Arif Azim, the chairman of Pakistan Railways, told AFP.
Years of decline saw customers flock to airlines and luxury coaches.
Azim
hopes that if the Business Express, and a similar service to be rolled
out on February 20 between Lahore, the textiles centre of Faizalabad and
Karachi, are a success then investors will sink millions more into
saving the railways.
"The sky's the limit because we're in a
pretty bad shape. We need a totally new fleet. 75 percent of our wagons
can be described as vintage," he said.
Retired journalist Ishtiaq
Ali is taking his young, second wife home after a two-week holiday to
show her snow for the first time in Murree, a resort in Pakistan's foot
hills of the Himalayas.
"Oh my goodness, what the hell are you
talking about," he jokes when asked how the new train compares to the
best rail services in the West.
"It's impossible. There's no
education, there's no security, there's no insurance. In Pakistan, you
can go outside and you can be held at gunpoint."
It may not be a
bullet train. It may not be the Orient Express, but his young wife
smiles as she edges out of Lahore, speeding past clapped-out carriages
shunted onto sidings. AFP
