‘Railway Transportation In Rivers Soon’

As soon as the on-going track rehabilitation work is completed, railway transportation would begin from Port Harcourt terminal to Imo River Station, Maiduguri and other parts of the country.

The station manager, Nigeria Railway Corporation, Port Harcourt, Mr. Abiodun Kingsley Oluoma, who dropped this hint in a chat with The Tide in his office yesterday said work had reached advance stage and that it might be completed before the end of the year or in the first quarter of next year.

Mr. Oluoma said work on two bridges between Port Harcourt and Enugu were also in progress, and pointed out that the station would soon bounce back to full time business.

He disclosed that the federal government had recently acquired 25 locomotives to further revamp the rail transport system, and described it as a welcome development.

According to him, rail transport system is safer, efficient, reliable and capable of moving passengers and large quantity of goods, and lauded the authorities for a work well done.

The station manager told The Tide that there are mass transit train services in Lagos and Minna-Kaduna pending when the rehabilitation work would be completed. He said  the pace of work was encouraging and expressed optimism that rail business would soon bounce back in Port Harcourt.

On the on-going Rivers State Government owned Monorail transportation project, Mr. Oluoma said it is a parallel rail transport system which when completed, would be intra-city business within Rivers State and that they are over-head while the railway system operates on the ground.  “We operate different system and they are not coming to push us out of business, he said.”

Collins Barasimeye