Rail safety for Manila-Naga route checked

The Philippine National Railways is set to run its trains again on the Manila-Naga City route this Dec. 15 but repairs and assessments by engineers on its rails and stations, like this one in Calamba City, have yet to be completed. —MARICAR P. CINCO

NAGA CITY—There’s a lot of work to be done before the Philippine National Railways (PNR) could reopen the Manila-Naga City route and they all revolve around one aspect of the rail line—safety.

Jose Florece, engineer and Naga City PNR manager, said safety takes precedence over other concerns when the government-owned railway agency resumes train runs between Manila and Naga.

PNR engineers are to travel by train from Manila to Ragay town, Camarines Sur province, on Nov. 18 to inspect tracks and assess whether they would be safe to open to regular train runs.

Repair work on a section of the rail bridge in Ragay, which collapsed in March when a flash flood washed out one of its foundations, is expected to be finished on Dec. 8.

Officials had set on Dec. 15 the resumption of commercial train runs between Manila and Naga.

Florece said PNR engineers would be fetched from Manila by the only running train here from the other end of the collapsed rail bridge in Ragay.

He said the Manila-Naga City route would be serviced by two sets of three-coach trains each with a 300-passenger capacity. Each train would feature two sleeper coaches and another coach with reclining seats.

Florece said the PNR continues to operate the train that runs the 54-kilometer distance from Naga City to Sipocot town twice daily. The train is composed of two coaches that can accommodate 100 to 200 passengers each. Fare is P30 per passenger.

He said the train service between Naga and Legazpi cities had been stopped because the engines of the train that runs the route needed repair. —JUAN ESCANDOR JR.