LAHORE: Railways Minister Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour on Friday appealed to the Prime Minister to help tackle the crisis of railways.

Addressing an inauguration ceremony of Pak Business Train by Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani at Railway Station here, Bilour appreciated the private company- Four Brothers- for introducing state-of-the-art facilities in the business train and termed it as an international one.

He said about 100 locomotives could have been repaired if an amount of Rs 11.1 billion of the bailout package approved by the Federal Cabinet was released. The PR was operating trains with only 147 locomotives as compared to Indian Railways which was being run with 8,300 locomotives.

He said railway was not a profitable business organisation, adding that it was a welfare department which provided economical means of transport to poor people.

He said the latest facilities, including online banking, tickets home delivery, medical staff, passengers insurance, comfortable waiting halls, wi-fi internet, computers and food had been provided to passengers while no extra charges would be collected for these facilities other than the tickets.

He said journey would be reduced for two hours after the completion of double-track and reserved fuel had also been stored for emergency at two places.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2012