China has dispatched the first shipment of 46 passenger coaches to Pakistan Railways and these will reach the South Asian country in approximately three weeks by sea.
The 46 coaches are being delivered to Pakistan under a $140 million contract for total 230 high-speed rail coaches. The remaining 184 units will be manufactured in Pakistan by the PR engineers and technical staff under the supervision of the Chinese experts.
A PR official told media that the shipment will reach Karachi port within three weeks and these will be sent to Lahore by the Karachi-Lahore main line-1 by end of this month, Dawn News reported. Pakistan has also signed a contract with a Chines firm for manufacturing of 800 freight wagons and 20 brake wagons. China will deliver some completely built units (CBUs) will remaining would be manufactured in Pakistan under the technology-transfer method.
Reports said that the railway is working to upgrade the dilapidated track (ML-1) to run the high-speech passenger coaches.