Traveling on Grand Trunk Road all my life, it captured my imagination as a cultural curiosity when I read Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. At the beginning of the last century Kipling called it:
“a wonderful spectacle…. without crowding…. green-arched, shade-flecked … a river of life.â€
But Pakistan’s National Highway Number 5 (N5), alias the Grand Trunk Road, or simply the GT Road, presents a different impression now.
Commuting up and down the GT Road are caravans of trucks, buses, cars, animals and animal transport also auto-rickshaws, all having equal right of the way. On the GT Road every bus, truck, and a car must pass the vehicle ahead. “The GT Road,†a veteran traveler John Otto wrote says, “really belongs to the trucker.†And he is right in a way. Have you traveled there lately? Seen any changes?
Photo Credits: WesternRaider
GTS was covering the whole province of KPK,alongwith services to Lahore and Rawalpindi. Two buses were plying between Peshawar and Kabul on daily basis.These buses were of blue clours made of Fiat company.
Due to mismangement and intervention of union leaders and not the least the private transportes also played a great part to vanish this comfortable service. Now the huge building of GTS stand sitiuted at Hashitnagri is converted in to a hospital, named Molvi Amir Shah Hospital
The G.T. road portion in India is much more broader now unlike in the past.It is full of cars,buses(HP roadways,Punjab Roadways,PEPSU roadways,Haryana Roadways,J&K Roadways, UP Pariwahan,Delhi UT roadways),redas,fruit stalls,Dhabas in thousands,Resorts,Hotels,bikes cyclewallahs,and above Tolls(Turnpikes).It appears entire Punjab and Haryana resides on this road.How is it in Pakistan
The stretch of GT Road I travelled the most on was between Hasanabdal and Pindi. This section had two constants: clouds of dust near Taxila (due to a hundred stone crushers) and a road under perpetual repair. I hope the situation has improved by now.
Rumi saheb. yes I remember the ‘tayyara’ buses of pre-AC pre- Daewoo days :) I also remember the red color buses of GTS. The GTS buses that plied on Lahore-Peshawar GT Road route were of blue color and they also came fitted with a sleeping berth towards the front :)
I remember traveling on GT road in my childhood and later. Ahh..what pleasant memories. Those were the pre-AC-bus days when Tayyara busses ruled the GT road. Buses, Trucks and Trees.. and that Full moon peeping from the window.. what a nostalgia.