IANS | 11 Jul, 2018
Nepal plans to operate its first ever broad-gauge passenger railway
service from Janakpur town to Indian border town Jayanagar in Bihar
starting December, a senior Nepalese rail official has said.
This
is a section of 69 km Nepal-India cross border railway line from
Jayanagar to Nepal's southeastern region. The other five cross-border
railway lines between the two neighbours are either being constructed or
are on the drawing board, Xinhua news agency reported.
There was
earlier a narrow gauge Janakpur-Jaynagar line in the past but that
service came to a halt around five years ago after renovation and
upgrading works began.
Prakash Bhakta Upadhyay, senior divisional
engineer at Nepal's Department of Railway (DoR) told Xinhua on Tuesday
that they planned to take rail carriages on a lease from India shortly
to start the operations.
Under the wet lease, Nepal will hire
Indian crew members to operate the service as the Himalayan country does
not have necessary human resources to operate the broad gauge railway
service, according to DoR.
