The leaders of Pakistan and India agreed to reopen the rail link -- which was severed during a 1965 war between the countries -- in New Delhi in April 2005. Since then, officials from the two sides have met several times to iron out the details.

"The two sides signed the agreement on the establishment of rail link via Zero Point Railway station near Khokhrapar (Pakistan) and Munabao (India)," stated a joint statement following a two-day meeting of senior railway officials from the two countries in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

The "Thar Express," named after a Pakistani desert in the region, will leave Mirpurkhas in southern Pakistan on February 18 and pass through the border town of Khokhrapar on the way to Munabao in India's western state of Gujarat. It will run every Saturday and return the same day.

Pakistan will operate the service for the first six months of the year, then India for the other six months.

It will be the second train to operate between the two countries, who have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. A rail link between Lahore and New Delhi was restarted in 2004, weeks after the two nations began peace talks.

Earlier this month, India and Pakistan agreed to open a new bus route between their parts of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, the focus of two of their three wars.

The peace talks have seen the two countries restore transportation, diplomatic and cultural ties, but progress has been slow on resolving their bitter dispute over Kashmir. The massive October 8 earthquake that killed more than 80,000 people on both sides of the border was expected to spur further peace gestures, but steps to open the border in Kashmir to allow survivors to cross has been mired in bureaucracy.

A fierce insurgency has raged in Indian-held Kashmir since 1989, with more than 66,000 people killed in the fighting. India accuses Pakistan's government of harboring and training some of the militants on its soil, a claim the Pakistanis deny.