Trial runs for new East-West Metro rakes to start in May

KOLKATA: From early May, the new rakes of the East-West Metro will start their trial runs along the elevated viaduct from Sector V to Salt Lake stadium. The train, worth Rs 64.5 crore, is expected to reach Kolkata around April 15 and the stretch will be inaugurated in October.
According to KMRC officials, the rake will initially be parked at the depot. It will run on the seven-kilometre track inside the car maintenance depot


till its full-fledged trial run along the actual viaduct. The six-coach train was manufactured by central PSU BEML, which will be supplying 84 such coaches (14 trains) to KMRC in the next few months. The total contract value is Rs 900 crore.

The commissioning of the track from Sector V to Phoolbagan is complete and Chinese firm CRRC will supply and install the platform screen-doors. All the coaches being brought from Bengaluru are air-conditioned, with online surveillance cameras that can monitor and record on board images remotely through a broadband radio system in real time, explained a KMRC official.

The design headway is 2.5 minutes, which means there will be a train every 2.5 minutes and the rakes can run without drivers. The communicationbased train control system (CBTC) will allow automatic train operation with minimal or no intervention from the train operator. However, KMRCL will have drivers in the cabin just to assure passengers.

The entire train movement can be monitored in real time and controlled from the operation control centre (OCC) at Central Park depot and the back-up control centre at Howrah station. The Tretra Train Radio can regulate the services from the control centre at any time. On-time arrival and departure of trains will be ensured with the help of the automatic train supervision (ATS) feature.

Even the depot — spread over 39acres — will be unique compared to the existing Metro depot at Tollygunge, the oldest in the country. The depot has an administration building, a central store, workshops, a stabling shed, an electrical tractor unit shed and a crew booking building. There are 16 buildings on a combined floor area of 1, 66,000sqm, with features like polycarbonate sheets to utilise daylight, recycling of water, energy-efficient lighting and environment control system are some of the features for achieving the rating.