Almost 70 percent of Pakistan’s railway tracks in the country have exhausted their designed life, while 70 percent of the bridges on the mainline railway network have exhausted their economic life.
This was learned from official documents that also revealed that all the available resources in revenue allocations are being utilized for safe train operations. Efforts to rehabilitate the tracks through PSDP allocation are also underway.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Railways has admitted that 70 percent of the bridges on the mainline railway network have exhausted their economic life.
However, the bridges have been maintained for safe train operations, subject to the imposition of speed restrictions.
The details of the aged railway network track, including Islamabad to Peshawar, are:
| Section | Route Length (km) | Track Length (km) | Percentage of Aged Track |
| ML-1 | 1872 | 3163 | 35 |
| ML-2 | 1254 | 1254 | 75 |
| ML-3 | 996 | 1034 | 83 |
| Branch Line | 3669 | 3744 | 90 |
| Total | 7791 | 9195 | 70 (average) |
The documents further revealed that the Islamabad-Peshawar section is part of the ML-1 out of 176 km track length, 75 percent is aged. The railway administration has been particularly focused on the repair/rehabilitation of bridges.
During the last three years, 32 bridges were replaced or reconstructed and 622 were repaired. Additionally, Pakistan Railways has planned to reconstruct all the bridges on its Main Line-1 (ML-1) under the ML-1 Up-gradation Project under the CPEC framework, PC-1 of which was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in August 2020.
The overall length of the track is being maintained with available resources. The track has been rehabilitated under different PSDP projects.
The details of the rehabilitated track are:
- Track Rehabilitation-I Completed by 2016
- 340 km Complete Track Renewal
- 290 km Sleeper Renewal
- Track Rehabilitation-II Completed by 2020
- 162 km Complete Track Renewal
- 38 km Sleeper Renewal and Rail Renewal
- Rehabilitation of Track (Sleeper Renewal) between Kolpur Quetta-Bostan on Sibi-Quetta-Chaman Section (33.50 km)
- PC-1 Under Preparation Line Headquarters Office Lahore
- Rehabilitation of Track on Nowshera-Mardan-Dargai Section of Restoration of Train Service (Peshawar Division) (65 km)
- Rehabilitation of Track on Shorkot-Jhang-Shahinabad-Sargodha-Malakwal-Pind Dadan Khan Section in connection with Coal Transportation (260 km)
- Rehabilitation of Track on Shahadra-Narowal-Chak Amru Section (130 km)
- Up-gradation/Rehabilitation of the Track between Quetta-Spezand Kohi-Taftan Section (639 km)
- Rehabilitation of Track on Kotri-Tando Adam-Rohri section (614 km)
