NRC To Begin Lagos-Kano Train Service

Express train service from Lagos to Kano will start in the first quarter of 2012, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Mr Adeseyi Sijuwade, has said.

Sijuwade gave the assurance while addressing journalists last Wednesday in Lagos.

The managing director said that the NRC would take delivery of 20 pressurised tank wagons in January to boost operations.

He added that that the corporation would increase the frequency of passenger transit services in Lagos from 8 to 16, also next year.

The managing director said that the rehabilitation of the Jebba-Minna rail route was 70 per cent completed and that ballast trains were already plying the route.

He said that the flooding of rail tracks at Akere in Niger had been controlled and that the rehabilitation of the rail lines had reached an advanced stage.

“This has contributed to the significant pace at which the restoration efforts of the Civil Engineering Department of the corporation on the rail-bearer bridge is going,’’ he said.

Sijuwade said that the Lagos-Ilorin train service had been restored with the official handing over of the track line by the China Civil Engineering Construction Company.

He said that a train would run on the route every Friday.

“The train returns to Lagos on Sunday. Other passenger train services now running are Kano to Kaduna , Kafanchan to Kaduna , Minna-Kaduna Kaduna intra-city and Lagos -Iddo/Apapa-Agbado-Ijoko.

“Passenger train service available in Maiduguri has been put on hold for security reasons,” he said.

Sijuwade said that the corporation had begun weekly freighting of 450 tonnes of cement from Ewekoro to Agege/Ijoko and transportation of 600 tonnes to Ibadan /Oshogbo on behalf of the Lafarge Cement Company.