On October 24, I travelled from Lahore to Karachi aboard the Pakistan Business Express, expecting a comfortable journey befitting a premium train. What followed, however, was a nightmarish experience, exposing the sorry state of Pakistan Railways. From a dilapidated station and delayed departure to chaotic boarding, questionable catering practices, unusable washrooms, and exorbitantly priced refreshments, the journey was a catalogue of indignities.
The train was scheduled to depart from Kot Lakhpat Railway Station at 4:50 p.m., but it had already been delayed by two hours at its point of origin, Lahore Junction. As the sun set over Kot Lakhpat, the station sank into darkness, illuminated by little more than a few dim, candle-like lights. The platform looked ravaged by time, while the station building resembled an archaeological ruin rather than a functioning facility in a major metropolitan city.
It was difficult to reconcile this dismal spectacle with the grand claims of development and beautification routinely made by those in authority. While Lahore’s main railway station is being renovated at considerable public expense, Kot Lakhpat appears to have been abandoned to neglect.
Situated in an important and relatively affluent part of Lahore, Kot Lakhpat is strategically placed to serve the city’s expanding population. Its proper development, supported by efficient transport links, could ease congestion at Lahore Junction and save passengers the trouble of travelling considerable distances to catch their trains. Why should such a significant station languish in deplorable conditions when its development could serve the public interest? Apparently, the convenience of ordinary citizens is not sufficiently compelling to move the machinery of government.
When the much-delayed Pakistan Business Express finally arrived, its condition offered little reassurance. Even the business-class coaches looked disappointingly shabby. Coach numbers had been scrawled in chalk in haphazard handwriting, as though the train were being prepared for a village fair rather than a premium intercity service. Worse still was the bewildering sequence of coach numbers: 13, 12, unknown, 7, 5, unknown, 10. Passengers were left to fend for themselves, desperately searching for their reserved compartments. It seemed to me I was existing in a stone-age era
My coach was number 3. I had barely begun looking for it when the train started moving without allowing passengers sufficient time to board safely. I had to leap into the coach immediately in front of me. Several other passengers did likewise, while some stumbled or fell on the platform in their frantic attempts to locate their compartments. One could hardly imagine a more reckless way to treat paying passengers.
A train is not a racecourse, and passengers are not participants in an obstacle race. Ensuring safe boarding is a fundamental responsibility of the railway administration. Allowing a train to move while passengers are still struggling to identify their coaches is not merely inconsiderate; it is an invitation to disaster. What if an elderly passenger had fallen beneath the wheels? What if a child had been injured? Would the authorities have accepted responsibility, or would the familiar game of passing the buck have begun?
I eventually located coach number 3 while making my way between the compartments, as did several other passengers. But must travellers risk their lives simply because those responsible cannot manage the most basic arrangements?
As a business-class passenger, I was entitled to a complimentary meal. Yet the person accompanying the meal trolley was followed by another individual selling drinking water. The arrangement was both absurd and objectionable. What is the point of serving passengers a meal while making them pay separately for one of the most basic necessities required to consume it comfortably? Had somebody devised a clever commercial trick to extract a few extra rupees from captive customers?
If drinking water was considered an additional expense, its cost could easily have been incorporated into the ticket price. A modest increase of Rs. 50, if financially justified, would have been a far more dignified arrangement than compelling passengers to purchase an essential item separately. Instead, passengers were left wondering whether they were travelling on a premium train or attending a masterclass in extracting money from a captive market.
The irony was unmistakable: a service that could arrange the delivery of a meal apparently could not arrange the equally essential provision of drinking water.
Some regular passengers informed me that tea would ordinarily follow the meal. Before long, however, a man boarded at Sahiwal and began selling tea in the business-class coach. His announcement was startling: passengers should buy tea from him because the railway would not provide it that day; the necessary supplies were unavailable. The price? Rs. 150 per cup.
Other vendors subsequently appeared at various stations, selling snacks, halwa, and assorted food items as they came and went at their own discretion. Apart from raising questions about the quality and pricing of these products, their apparently unrestricted movement through the coaches raised legitimate security concerns.
A railway carriage is not a public bazaar where anyone can wander in, announce a shortage, and sell goods at whatever price the market will bear. Passenger security, food hygiene, and commercial accountability require clear rules and effective enforcement.
The following morning brought another unwelcome surprise. After an exhausting night, passengers were served a small, rolled paratha soaked in an alarming quantity of grease, with a thin slice of omelette inside. Whether the excessive oil was cooking oil, ghee, or something else was impossible to determine. Whatever the explanation, the breakfast hardly inspired confidence.
I asked for tea. The man accompanying the breakfast trolley handed me a cup and informed me that it was a paid item. I agreed to pay. After all, who can imagine breakfast without tea, particularly after a long and uncomfortable night? The tea was decidedly substandard. The price, however, was anything but modest: Rs. 400 for a cup!
The man wore black trousers and a white shirt and appeared to be associated with the train’s catering crew. I was perplexed by the arrangement. Four hundred rupees for poor-quality tea is not merely extravagant; in a supposedly premium public transport service, it is an affront to the passenger.
Who determines these prices? Who authorises the vendors? Who monitors the quality of food and beverages? And who ensures that passengers are not exploited simply because they have no convenient alternative? A premium fare should buy premium service, not merely a more expensive seat in a poorly managed coach.
The ordeal did not end with the catering arrangements. After the train crossed Khanewal, the washrooms were devoid of water and became practically unusable. This deplorable situation persisted all the way to Karachi Cantt. For passengers confined to a train for many hours, a functioning washroom is not a luxury but a fundamental necessity. Its importance is even greater for women, children, older people, and those with medical conditions.
What sort of management allows a train to undertake a long-distance journey without ensuring an adequate water supply? Are maintenance checks conducted before departure? Does anyone inspect the facilities en route, or are passengers simply expected to endure their misery in silence?
Upon reaching Karachi Cantt, there was one final indignity. Sweepers began approaching individual passengers and soliciting chai paani, a euphemism commonly used in Pakistan for an informal payment or tip.
There is nothing inherently wrong with voluntarily rewarding a worker for good service. Indeed, the dignity of labour deserves respect. But tips should never be demanded or extracted through pressure. Passengers should be able to complete their journeys without facing another financial imposition while trying to disembark.
By then, the cumulative effect of the experience had become overwhelming. Delays, shabby coaches, chaotic boarding, questionable catering, exorbitant prices, waterless washrooms, and unsolicited requests for money had transformed an ordinary journey into an exercise in endurance.
Having taught management students at the university level for years, I could not help examining this sorry spectacle through the lens of management and marketing. The arrangements surrounding meals, drinking water, and tea led me to suspect that commercial considerations may have been prioritised over passenger welfare. I could almost imagine a young BBA or MBA graduate, perhaps employed by a private contractor managing the train’s services, devising a strategy to maximise revenue by separating complimentary food from paid drinking water and refreshments.
This remains a suspicion, not an established fact. The relevant contracts and catering policies would need to be examined before any such strategy could be attributed to a particular individual or organisation.
Nevertheless, the experience raises a fundamental management question: what happens when the pursuit of revenue becomes detached from customer satisfaction? Sound marketing is not about persuading customers to pay more for less or exploiting circumstances in which they have no convenient alternative. It is about providing value, understanding consumer needs, and building trust.
A passenger who receives a decent meal, safe drinking water, reasonably priced refreshments, and access to clean washrooms is more likely to recommend the service. One who is overcharged, inconvenienced, and treated with indifference is more likely to warn others against it.
A few rupees extracted through questionable commercial practices may ultimately cost an institution far more in lost goodwill and public credibility and common curses and abusive words from the masses.
The experience was particularly disappointing in the context of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s public emphasis on beautifying infrastructure and improving facilities at railway stations and bus terminals. It was equally difficult to reconcile the journey with the assurances associated with Federal Railways Minister Hanif Abbasi regarding modernised infrastructure, improved tracks, and more comfortable train services.
Public representatives are entitled to publicise their achievements, but publicity cannot substitute for performance. If stations are being beautified, passengers should experience the improvement. If infrastructure is being modernised, trains should operate safely and reliably. If premium services are being promoted, their coaches, washrooms, catering, and passenger-management systems should reflect the advertised standards.
The real test of governance is not how impressively a project is presented at a press conference. It is how efficiently an ordinary citizen is served when no minister, camera, or dignitary is present.
I make a direct and earnest appeal to Federal Minister for Railways Hanif Abbasi: please begin reform with the passenger’s actual experience. Travel incognito, if necessary, and observe the conditions ordinary citizens encounter. Inspect neglected stations, examine coach numbering and boarding arrangements, check the washrooms after a train has travelled several hundred kilometres, and investigate catering contracts and the prices charged for refreshments. Establish who is responsible for providing drinking water and ensuring passenger safety.
If entrenched bureaucracy, vested interests, or powerful lobbies are obstructing reform, the public deserves an honest account of these impediments. Such candour would be more honourable than allowing the existing state of affairs to persist behind a façade of progress.
A minister is entrusted with responsibility to the people, not merely with an office from which to issue statements or inaugurate projects. If institutional resistance is preventing meaningful reform, it is his duty to confront the problem and explain it transparently.
The public deserves to know who is accountable, what corrective measures are being taken, and when tangible improvements can be expected.
Pakistan Railways is an important public institution serving workers, students, families, businesspeople, and countless citizens who depend on affordable intercity transport. Its shortcomings cannot be dismissed as minor administrative inconveniences. Whether the causes lie in inadequate funding, outdated infrastructure, weak supervision, or contractual failures, each requires investigation and an appropriate remedy.
I protest not merely as a dissatisfied passenger but as an educator, a management professional, and a citizen who believes that public institutions must be answerable to the people they serve.
Mr Minister, the people do not expect miracles. They expect safe boarding, clean washrooms, drinking water with their meals, reasonably priced tea, and the assurance that their lives and dignity matter.
If these elementary expectations are too much to ask of a premium train, the problem is not the passenger’s expectations; it is the institution’s failure to meet them.
Railway tracks may connect cities, but the quality of service connects a public institution with its people. That connection is in urgent need of repair.
