Steam in Pakistan, 1992-7

This page provides links to the older Pakistan reports. 

The big hope in 1998 was the reopening of the branch from Bostan but it never quite came off...

Bostan Narrow Gauge Revival Vic Allen's contact reported in September 1998: "The Bostan project is stalled.  All the facilities are in place but it has proved impossible to get approval to get started owing to budgetary constraints. The whole business will have to be cleared at the highest level if it is to proceed." The first two pictures were taken by John Tillman at Moghalpura at the end of June 1998, the last was taken at Bostan on March 7th 1999, where both the locos are now, but no work appears to have been done on repairing the track.

For a flavour of the way the country was check out Pakistan steam in 1992 and Heinrich Hubbert 's report which covers the pre-closure time in Autumn 1996. If you are interested in helping conserve Pakistan's Railway Heritage then click here.

Pakistan implemented a massive round of cuts to secondary services during early 1997 which virtually wiped out steam in the country. Vic Allen sent a report of his tour to the country in early January 1997 which painted a bleak picture even though he was there before the closures.  Bernd Seiler's March 1997 report confirms the disaster, but there is still some metre gauge steam.  There are discrepancies between reports, but general agreement that there is now very little steam activity left in the country. Berndt Seiler's metre gauge timetable was effective March 13th to 15th 1997 but disagrees with that in World Steam 97/3. Visit with an open mind!