Hyde
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LAHORE (July 24 2009): Pakistan Railways is running first international container train from Islamabad to Istanbul, Turkey on August 14. General Manager, Pakistan Railways, Saeed Akhtar who recently visited Turkey in connection with finalising arrangements for running the train said Pakistan and Iran had agreed to tariff proposed by Turkey.
Talking to APP here on Thursday, he said matters pertaining to customs and technical issues had also been finalised by the three countries and the first container train would run as 'demonstrative one' He said the train being run under ECO, would comprise 20 containers (coaches) of 20 feet each which would take 15 days to reach its destination. He said it would run for 104 hours in Pakistan, 127 hours in Iran and 135 hours in Turkey and would provide a link to Europe and central Asian states.
He said initial response of business community was very good and hopefully enough cargo would be available for running train on weekly basis. He said, as Islamabad was not the trade centre of the country, train on regular basis would be run from Lahore or Faisalabad.
