Rail link that connected Jammu, Sialkot

May 25, 2003

Rail link that connected Jammu, Sialkot
S.P. Sharma
Tribune News Service

JAMMU: A hose made in Britain stands as a forgotten landmark of the Jammu-Sialkot (Pakistan) rail link in the workshop of the state road transport corporation near the Tawi bridge here. It is covered with wild plantation in one corner of the workshop.

This section was the only rail link here before Partition and has not been revived because Jammu and Kashmir has always remained volatile with Pakistan raising disputes over the territory.

The old railway station has been converted into a workshop of the government owned road transport corporation and the platform was recently demolished to widen the main road outside. A huge cultural complex is being constructed in a portion of the erstwhile railway station and some part of it is being used as a stores yard of the Projects Construction Corporation. Shops have come up in the building which once housed the customs office. Other buildings in the workshop have been converted into offices of the transport corporation.

An old-timer and a veteran journalist, Mr Dharam Chandra Prashant, recalls fun he used to have while travelling to Sialkot to participate in games. Many times he went beyond Lahore, the most developed town of the area those days.

Mr Prashant recalls he used to pay a fare of 4 annas for Sialkot. Many residents of Sialkot used to come here for a picnic at the canal. It took nearly 30 minutes to reach Sialkot from here.

Mr Lok Nath Mangotra, a timber trader, recalls that he regularly caught the train for reaching Nawanshahr en route Sialkot where he had established his business. The fare for his destination in the train was 3 annas against the bus fare was 4 annas. He travelled to Lahore in the same train in 1945 to appear in an examination of Panjab University.

Over the years the rail line has been dismantled by the people and houses have come up in the small railway stations which existed earlier on the route. Most of the land of the railway station at Miran Sahib, 8 kms from here, was allotted to refugees who came from Poonch.