KATHMANDU, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Nepal plans to operate first ever broad-gauge passenger railway service from Nepal's southeastern Janakpur town to Jayanagar, bordering town of India, in the next five months by purchasing two rail sets from India, a senior official of Nepal's Department of Railway, said Saturday.
Nepal's Railway Department signed an agreement with India's Konkan Railway Corporation, an Indian government undertaking, on Friday in Nepal's capital Kathmandu to procure two Diesel-Electric Multiple Unit rail sets. Nepali officials said each set will have five cars with capacity of carrying 1300 passengers and their maximum speed will be 100 km per hour.
"We expect to receive these rail sets within the next three to four months," Balaram Mishra, director general of Nepal's Railway Department told Xinhua on Saturday. "We hope to start operation of the passenger railway within a month after the rail sets arrive."
Once the railway comes into operation, it will be the first time in six years that Nepal will have an operating passenger railway system. There was an operation of Janakpur-Jaynagar railway service in the past but on a narrow gauge line. But the service came to a complete halt around six years ago after renovation and upgrading works began. The Nepali government recently completed laying railway tracks on Janakpur-Jaynagar section, which is a part of 69-km Nepal-India cross border railway.
"We will hire Indian manpower in technical and engineering field such as crew members, engineers for maintenance and signaling until we gain expertise on the field," said Mishra. "We will mobilize our own staffs in the railway stations though."
