Pakistan, Rusting in Its Tracks

[johnnigh]

New York Times, Sunday 19 May:
by Declan Walsh
A train journey across Pakistan highlights the woes of its rail system, which are a microcosm of larger troubles: corruption, economic disparity, political unrest and neglected infrastructure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/pakistans-railroads-sum-up-nations-woes.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130519&_r=0
Slideshow:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/05/18/world/asia/20130519-PAKISTAN.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130519

A comment by a reader says a lot about neglect or destruction of railways as a metaphor for descent into anarchy:

PhilBeirut
FLAG
As a Lebanese having visited a few countries, I've come to look at rail tracks and train and subway stations as monuments to democracies able to vote on taxes to build and maintain very complicated, very costly projects for the long term common good. And I've come to imagine, as a proxy for a truly working democracy, an index of inhabitants per operational railway or subway passenger seat or, more simply of inhabitants per usable kilometer of railway of subway tracks. In Lebanon, the last potentially usable train track was replaced years ago by a road meant to relieve the main coastal highway. It has been years that both are clogged with traffic jams most of the time during extended rush hours. Today, Lebanon has zero meter of train tracks.