Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, the minister for railways, who has looked and sounded obsessed with the number of new trains and hefty profits, had better make the safety of passengers his top priority. On Thursday, while he was addressing a press conference he was delivered the bad news that a passenger train and a freight train had collided near Hyderabad. Taking responsibility in the wake of a spree of derailments, breakdown of locomotives and fires and now this deadly collision, the minister should have shown the grace to quit the office. This is what Prime Minister Imran Khan used to demand from the railways minister in the previous government after every incident of the kind. Instead, the minister issued a video message hours later, where he said: “Today at around 5:30pm Jinnah [Express] hit a stationary goods train from behind near Hyderabad due to which three people were killed … I have already issued instructions for the matter to be investigated and for the probe to be concluded within 24 hours … I apologise to all the passengers of Pakistan Railways who were inconvenienced.” The fact is three people were killed in a head-on collision between Jinnah Express and the coal-carrying freight train. Reasons for the collision have yet to be ascertained but the fact that the railways are going through administrative and operational crises is obvious from the frequency of derailments and accidents on the main line as well as branch lines. On June 18, Jinnah Express’s dining car was up in flames near Harrapa railway station, causing suspension of traffic for several hours. When the minister took over with the inception of the incumbent government in August 2018, he announced that the railway sector would be modernized. It has since emerged that his vision of a modern railway service is more trains. He has already launched 30 new passenger and freight trains. The expansion in operations demands new locomotives and coaches. The minister, however, seems to have had no patience for that. We are told that in order to launch new trains, railways have had to use the rolling stock reserved for emergencies. Recently, the parliament was informed that out of the 10 new trains launched, six were running losses. Once the investigation into the collision is over, railways authorities should put their heads together and make passengers’ safety their top priority. Frequent collisions and derailments are the sign of an outdated signals system, deteriorating railway lines and poor staff morale. Addressing these issues will improve the seat occupancy factor by making the trains safer. *