The Lagos rail district said it is battling to contain the the challenges confronting it as a result of passenger and freight train derailments along the corridor in recent times which BusinessDay gathered is affecting the downtime of the corporate fleet customers making use of the services.
Speaking with BusinessDay on telephone last Monday, Jerry Oche, the Lagos rail district manager (RDM) of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), he stated, that, there is nothing strange with cases of derailments as the occurrence is part of the hazards experienced in the rail transport industry all over the world.
He however added that, the most important thing is the response of time of railway authorities in tackling the problem as quickly as possible in other not to disrupt the operations of the organisation.
BusinessDay checks reveal that the frequency of derailments have increased since the commencement of the $1.5 billion Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge rail project as most of the narrow railings on which the passenger and freight trains ply have been disaligned in the course of the project.
A derailment occurs when a vehicle such as a train runs off its rails. This does not necessarily mean that it leaves its track. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system, and they are potentially seriously hazardous to human health and safety.
Usually, the derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, an operational error, the mechanical failure of tracks, such as broken rails, or the mechanical failure of the wheels.
Our reporter had last week reported that, there was a decrease in the number of passengers it conveyed both in its mass transit train, (MTT), diesel multiple units (DMU) and the express train passenger trains especially between April and May this year.
A breakdown of the volume of passenger conveyed on the mass transit train services (MTT) shows that in January, it moved 130,244, February 141,244, March 162,440 with a decine to 138,673 in April and 131,641 in the month of May.
The diesel multiple units (DMU) service passenger movement recorded 11,705 in January, 9,231 in February, dropped further to 7,025 in March, and later rise to 11,379 in April and dropped to 10,868 passengers that used the service in May.
For the premium express train passenger service, a total of 1,572 passengers used the service in January, for the month of Fenruary it recorded 668; 1,110 in March and 1,433 in April followed by a sharp drop to 267 passengers in May.
A summary of total passenger moved from the different departure points under the Lagos district shows that between January and May, the MTT conveyed carried 70,4242, DMU 50,208 while the Express train service moved a total of 5,050 paseengers.
On the causes of the decline in the number of passengers carried on return trip from April to May for the mass transit train (MTT), diesel multiple units (DMU) and Express train services, Jerry Oche stated that a number of factors accounted for it which is normal in the course of its operations.
