The minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, yesterday, carried out a final check on the Abuja – Kaduna railway, declaring the project, ready for flag-off by President Muhammadu Buhari, come July 26.
Speaking at the Idu station of the rail line in Abuja, the minister, who was accompanied by the national chairman of his party, All Progressives Congress (APC), John Odigie Oyegun, said,
“we are ready to go. From the things we have seen today (yesterday), we are set to go. This test run exercise has been on for over a month. We said it was going to run for two weeks but we allowed it for six weeks so that everybody can use it.”
“we are ready to go. From the things we have seen today (yesterday), we are set to go. This test run exercise has been on for over a month. We said it was going to run for two weeks but we allowed it for six weeks so that everybody can use it.”
While revealing the time the rain lines will start commercial business, Amaechi said, “We are targeting that from Tuesday after the president must have flagged off the Abuja-Kaduna rail, we will then begin to charge passengers.”
The minister who sought the opinion of the passengers before fixing the fare said, “They suggested 500 on economy and I will do that".
“One of the reasons why we did not commission earlier is because we wanted the train to run for at least a month and check if there will be any problem but we have done that for over a month and there was no problem.”
On the challenges of getting passengers, he said, “the passengers have found solution to their problems and they don’t need to be transported to Idu before they board the train to Kaduna. People on their own have devised a means of boarding the train from Kubwa and Kubwa presently has the highest number of passengers. The train presently has the capacity for 330 passengers.”
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