The Managing Director, of Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Mr Fidet Okhiria, has announced that all standard gauge rail lines in the country will begin six train trips in 2024.
Okhiria announced this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, on Monday.
“We are going to increase the number of train trips to six on Lagos-Ibadan, Warri-Itakpe and Abuja-Kaduna, which means the trips will be three times to and three times fro, making six trips in a day.
“The trips will commence before the second quarter of 2024. Right now, they are running four trips — two up and two down across the board,” Okhiria explained.
The NRC boss further stated that what has been limiting the corporation from recording six trips daily across the board is the security situation in the country that prevented trains from operating at nighttime.
“What is limiting us is the night operations, which is not how train should operate. The train is meant to operate at all times. People may like to travel in the evening, but because of the security situation in to the country, we limit ourselves to daytime,” he said.
The NRC boss further revealed that the corporation intends to bring back passenger and freight trains from Port-Harcourt to Aba, Lagos to Kano and Kaduna because of the dry ports.
According to him, Dala Dry Port had been asking NRC to come up and bring cargo to them, while Funtua and Kaduna Dry Ports had also shown interest in freight haulage.
Okhiria also disclosed that the corporation would begin the Port-Harcourt-Aba, Lagos to Kano train service for passengers and freight in the first quarter of 2024.
Recall that Nairametrics recently reported that Okhiria disclosed that there is an ongoing project involving the laying of tracks from Port-Harcourt to Maiduguri, of which he assured that the tracks between Port-Harcourt and Aba would be ready in days.
Furthermore, the NRC boss revealed that the corporation faced vandalism issues at several rail lines in the country, such as the Warri-Itakpe line, in which the vandalised clips were fixed two weeks after the incident took place.
Okhiria maintained that once the rail lines across the country become fully operational, it would be difficult for the train tracks to be vandalised when it was occupied.
He also noted that as soon as freight rail lines across the country begin operating round the clock, the price of commodities would drastically reduce.