Previously , passengers have been facing mobility challenges as there was only one passenger train in a week.

Communications Officer for CEAR Chisomo Mwamadi told MBC that the new passenger will give people more travelling options.

“We received a lot of requests from people to increase our passenger train frequency and we are happy to tell the general public that  beginning 19th December 2015; the Passenger Train between Limbe and Nayuchi will be moving twice per week on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

“Passengers will now have an option whether to travel on Saturday or Wednesday which is a good development because we have a lot of people who rely on rail transportation between Limbe, Balaka, Liwonde and Nayuchi.” said Mwamadi.

He said the development will also help CEAR  in reducing train transit time as they would spend more time at a train station to accommodate more people at once and also help deal with the issue of congestion at the same time .” Mwamadi added.

With this arrangement, when the passenger train leaves Limbe on Saturday, it will return on Monday and take the same route again on Wednesday returning on Friday.

In another development, the company says the rehabilitation of the Limbe - Nkaya railway line is progressing well with the first phase expected to finish around March 2016.

CEAR is putting new rails of 40kg/metre, repairing bridges, replacing steel sleepers with concrete sleepers, putting stone ballast to improve the drainage system among other works between Lirangwe and Nkaya as the first phase. 

The second phase will involve the rehabilitation of the Lirangwe to Limbe section.

According to Mwamadi, the rehabilitation works will make the line stronger, reduce transit time as trains will be able to move with speed among other benefits of the new line.