The Lagos railway district of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) has recorded a 15.20 percent in the number of wagons and 15.81 percent increase in the number of cargo haulage on its freight train services in the month of April and May 2019, with a drop in passenger traffic.
A breakdown of the statistics of passengers and goods of Lagos district for the year 2019 indicates that in terms of movement of freight, the district moved 532 wagons/17,326 tons of goods in January, 401 wagons/15,646 tons in the month of February, 438 wagons/17,520 tons in March, 684 wagons/27,320 tons for the month of April and 788 wagons/ 31,640 tons of goods in May.
During a telephone chat with BusinessDay, Jerry Oche, railway district manager (RDM) of the Nigeria Railway Corporation, he disclosed that between April and May, freight movement by the Lagos railway district grew 15.20 percent in number of wagons and 15.81 percent in terms of containerised goods moved from the Apapa port complex to the Ebute-Metta Junction (EBJ) facility of Nigerian Railway Corporation, Ijoko and Sanusi in Ogun State as far as the Kaduna Inland Container Depot.
Meanwhile, 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.
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, the railway district manager, 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.
Responding to what are 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.
These ranges from recurring incidences of derailments as result of the wet season which may cause a delay in the resumption of services as aresult of the length of time it takes to fix the problems, including obstructions experienced in passsengers trains movement as a result of the ongoing construction of the 156 kilometer Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge rain project.
MIKE OCHONMA
