Studies on the introduction of intra-city rail passenger service in the country has been completed, Mr Samuel Barnes, Managing Director of the Ghana Railway Corporation (GRC), said last Friday in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Takoradi.

He said technical details and drawings have been submitted to the government for the necessary action.

Mr Barnes said:" What we are waiting for is for the government to provide the necessary financial support for the project to take off." He said the service would first be introduced in Accra and later in Kumasi as part of efforts to provide an alternate means of transport in order to decongest vehicular traffic.

Mr Barnes said the studies recommended that the service be run by a private company but the GRC would like to start it using existing rail links between Accra and Tema.

He said the service would later be extended to some densely populated areas in Accra where vehicular traffic is a problem.

Mr Barnes said a three-year programme to refurbish 30 passenger coaches was on course and so far 21 coaches have been completely rehabilitated while work was progressing on six others.Some passenger train services were suspended sometime last year because of shortage of fuel and to enable some coaches, which had been in operation for about 14 years to be refurbished.He said plans were afoot to add to the existing service to ease congestion.

There are no immediate plans to purchase new locomotives in addition to the 25 in use.

Mr Barnes drew the attention of the Accra and Kumasi Metropolitan Assemblies, that it was their responsibility to build markets for the people and should, therefore, initiate action to rid rail lines of hawkers.He said the Corporation had tried to deal with the problem without success.