Narrow gauge active, says NRC

The Management of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has said the narrow gauge track of the corporation is alive and active.

Contrary to a publication in one of the newspapers (not The Guardian), which implied that our narrow gauge is “dead,” our management accords a high premium to objective reportage, but we disagree with the recent publication credited to it.

The Deputy Director of Public Relations, NRC, Yakub Mahmood, in a statement on Friday, in respect of the rehabilitation and operations of narrow gauge rail lines in the country, especially the narrow gauge known as the western and eastern lines that crisscross from Lagos to Kano and Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, said that on the western line, trains are operating from Apapa and Ido to Ijoko, still running the mass transit train service (MTTS) every day of the week, which is highly patronized by passengers.

He said, “We also freight containers from Apapa port and cement from Ewekoro to Ibadan and Oshogbo. This is in addition to the special passenger train chartered by the state government during the festive period on the same narrow gauge corridor.

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“We have the Port Harcourt to Aba mass transit train (MTT) that operates daily except on Mondays.”

He said at no time, whether now, before, or in recent times, has the narrow gauge been out of train operations.

According to Mahmood, the narrow gauge is certainly alive and active, and we are still running our trains on it in various parts of the country.

He said the Federal Government is committed to the revitalization of the entire nation’s railway asset, as it is demonstrating in its investment in the modernization of the railway through the construction of standards and rehabilitation of narrow gauge lines across the country.

He said the management, therefore, wishes to inform the general public that the railway is still alive and actively in operation on both standard and narrow gauges.