Shades of the North Western Railway, Pakistan, 1992

After the delights of Malakwal, I had a day in Lahore. Permission had been granted for a visit to the workshops at Moghalpura but no-one in the railway offices in town was quite certain whether photography would be allowed there. Experience elsewhere suggested it would be unwise to leave it behind at head quarters with my bags and so it proved. Of course 'Boxing Day, 26th December' was not a holiday in Pakistan, in fact I doubt that Christmas Day had been one either.

Just inside the works area were two preserved locomotives, North Western Railway 4-6-0 448 and Scinde, Punjab and Delhi Railway 0-4-2 'Eagle'. Permission to photograph was readily given and if anyone had heard about the 'no photography' rule, they had conveniently forgotten it during my visit.

Two locomotives were ex-works and being tested, SPS 4-4-0 3165 and HGS 2-8-0 2257, between them was a stationary boiler.

Inside was extremely gloomy, but despite rumours to the contrary, steam was still being overhauled. First being dismantled was metre gauge YD 2-8-2 520, while SPS 2964 was being fired up.

I now set off to find the preserved narrow gauge items at the railway golf course. En route, a bit of conventional wisdom was turned on its head when SGS 0-6-0 2453 was passed doing a spot of shunting - I had not expected to see any working steam in Lahore...

Unfortunately, 2'6" gauge G class 2-8-2 54 was not well positioned for photography although the accompanying coach was. (Don't go looking for these now, Thomas Kautzor reported in 2006 that the golf course had been privatised in 2004 and they had 'moved on', destination unknown.)

It was time to travel south for some metre gauge delights.