ZERO POINT, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan and India resumed a train service across the Thar desert on Saturday, 40 years after it was suspended following the second of the three wars between the two South Asian rivals.

Sitting on camels, paramilitary troops patrolled the desert as the train arrived at Pakistan's southern border village of Khokhropar for its onward journey to Munabao in India's Rajasthan state. It arrived at Manabao later on Saturday.

Many passengers burst into tears and shouted "Long Live Pak-India friendship" as the Thar Express halted at Zero Point, the last stop on the Pakistani side of the border.

Dancers wearing traditional dresses danced to the beat of drums to greet the train, decorated with colourful buntings.

"I was 13 years old when I came here. Now I am going to my home for the first time after 58 years," said Mohammad Ali Azhar, whose parents migrated to Pakistan to escape bloodshed that killed hundreds of thousands of people following partition of the sub-continent in 1947.

At around 2 p.m (0830 GMT), the flower-bedecked train with "Queen of the Desert" and "Bridge of friendship" written on it, crossed the India-Pakistan border.

A few minutes later it reached Munabao -- a sleepy village in western Rajasthan.

Hundreds of people and security personnel greeted the train along its 2-km (one mile) journey from the border to Munabao. At the station, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav received the passengers, some of whom had gifts in their hands and tears in their eyes.

"History has been repeated. I am very glad to be in India," Jan Zahad, the train driver, told Reuters.

Zahad said he drove the last Pakistani train out of India in 1965 when the two countries went to war and the service halted.

We belong to this desert

Ladhi Singh Sodho, a Hindu Pakistani engineer, was making his first visit to his in-laws in India since he and his wife married in 1992.

"We belong to this desert. This sand does not distinguish between Hindu and Muslim. This is sand of my own people," he said, his voice filled with emotion.

"Resumption of the Thar train and other such steps will definitely promote love and friendship between the two countries."

Up to 12,000 people bade farewell to the train when it stopped at the southern Pakistani city of Hyderabad on Friday night on its way to Khokhropar.

The service between Khokhropar and Munabao was discontinued during the 1965 India-Pakistan war over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Nearly 170 Pakistani citizens and officials took the train which will take back about 260 Indians.

Sakina Doda from India's Punjab state, said she was going to meet her parents in the Pakistani city of Karachi, 35 years after she was married to an Indian.

"I never dreamt of this day," she said, tearful with joy.

The service will be operated using a Pakistani train for the first six months and an Indian train for the subsequent six months.

It will be the second rail link established between the nuclear-armed rivals since they launched a peace process two years ago after they went to the brink of a fourth war.

A train service linking India's Punjab state with Pakistani Punjab was restored in 2004.

Last month, the two countries launched a third cross-border bus service.

While confidence-building measures undertaken by the two countries have strengthened transport, cultural, sporting and commercial links since starting the peace process, they have made little progress on Kashmir, cause of two of their three wars since 1947.