Kolkata East-West Metro lines to stay shut for 2 days to allow passage of rakes
Times of India | 26 November 2024
KOLKATA: For the first time since the East-West Metro was launched in Mar 2020, services on both the sections will be suspended along the corridor for two consecutive days — on Dec 14 and 15 — to allow the passage of eight empty rakes to and from the Salt Lake depot. It is also the first time that so many rakes will be transported through the incomplete Esplanade-Sealdah section.
Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), which is implementing the 16km East-West Metro corridor or the Green Line, intends to take the four rakes that were brought to the under-river section from the Salt Lake depot on Nov 10 back for maintenance. The rakes will be exchanged with four others.
The state-of-the-art BEML-make rakes running on the East-West Metro corridor need regular (at least weekly) upkeep. However, no such facility is available on the Howrah side. Therefore, rakes are slowly maneuvered through the unfinished Esplanade-Sealdah section's somewhat complete eastbound tunnel. From Sealdah, they are driven normally to the Central Park carshed-cum-maintenance depot. Because of the cumbersome job, only two rakes have been used in the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section ever since it was launched on Mar 15 this year.
East-West Metro runs in two disjointed sections — 4.8km Howrah Maidan-Esplanade and the 9.2km Sector V-Sealdah. The 2.5km Esplanade-Sealdah is incomplete. KMRC and Metro Railway, which operates the city’s rapid transit network, are chasing a mid-2025 deadline to complete the Esplanade-Sealdah section so that the corridor, India’s first under-river Metro, can do its full 16km run.
Work in the subsidence-prone Esplanade-Sealdah section has suffered repeated setbacks and the movement of rakes every week has further decelerated the pace. Each time a rake is taken from the Howrah section to the Salt Lake depot, which has facilities to scrutinize and clean the rakes, the third rail (from which the rakes draw electricity) of the eastbound rake would have to be charged. And all civil construction would come to a halt. The authorities, therefore, granted contractors ITD ITD-Cementation a month’s power block from Nov 11 to Dec 13 to expedite work.
The ongoing power block has facilitated the last leg of track-laying work. When it is lifted on Dec 14 , civil construction will be stalled for two days. Meanwhile, on Saturday, the two rakes operating for the last fortnight on the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section were exchanged with the ones parked on the westbound tunnel.