Here’s my Orange Train, Lahore review

The stations are accessible. Escalators, stairs and a ramp & elevator for wheelchairs to get to the station

I got on at Ali Town station which also has a lot of parking area next to it, so I just parked close and hopped on

The stations itself are huge and pretty easy to navigate

You can buy the ticket at kiosks (or recharge your card) where I didn’t understand why you couldn’t pay by card. Only cash. Tbf machine reads cash alright and gives change as well

Still, card payments ftw

The platform is at the top level so after purchasing ticket another elevator / escalator up

The train itself, a monorail, is as cool as it can get and overall everything’s pretty cool

From inside, the train is women friendly. Cabins are connected from within so you can walk from one end to another and almost half the bogeys are for families

There are cameras within the train and staff routinely announcing to give space to women if they need to pass by

Once it starts running, Lahore is pretty and all, albeit the smog, but what I didn’t expect to see was the kind of people using it

Lots of people with suitcases got on at first few stations. Then got off at the railway station, where I assume they’d then travel to a diff city

There were jean / jacket, headphones in ear people on their daily commute (on a sunday?) as well as people in worn out shalwar kameez with shawls , getting from one part of city to another

Then there were families too, who’d just come for picnic like myself :)

As the stations progressed, it got crowded, and I was wondering if this is non-peak time what does the peak time even look like

The trains are like 3/4 min from each other so it’s not like if you miss one you’d have to wait a lot for next one

There are some wonderful views of Lahore. I did not, for example, know how green the area around UET station is.

Chauburji too looks pretty cool from the top. I could also point out a few areas which’ll definitely have tall buildings going up soon because of OLMT

A lot of people got off at Shalimar Bagh. I assume cos they were going for a picnic. Lucky for Shalimar Bagh’s revenue department lol

We basically covered over 2 hours worth of journey in just over 30 mins

The platforms are well staffed, getting people in lines and getting them to maintain distance from the train as it approaches

The stations are well maintained though it did piss me off how a few people had thrown wrappers here or there

As soon as you get out of the station, people had thrown plates, tissues, fruit peels everywhere

Outside the Stations they had a host of food vendors, since they see a lot of footfall, but lack of bins and some poor etiquettes spoiled the area outside stations

The train goes underground just before Anarkali. Both Anarkali and GPO stations are underground and yeah, they’re pretty cool

Though I feel the tunnels are too wide. They could’ve done with narrow tunnels, train could’ve passed easily. And tunnels are lit as well

Overall it was a good experience. If I could take this commute on a daily basis, I’d be pretty okay with it, as I learnt just after the ride how stressful driving in this city is

Also, the trains were heated, so I assume they’d have AC running too during summer months