Delhi Metro snippets

With an increasing number of people preferring to use the Metro and ridership figures fast inching towards the 9-lakh mark, shortage of trains is becoming quite evident. The jostling for space during rush hour and virtually all the time on the Dwarka line is already taking away from what was once a comfortable ride. In an attempt to address this problem and expedite delivery of new trains, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has decided to airlift two train sets from Germany, where they are being manufactured. The coaches will be brought one at a time in a transportation aircraft and will cost a whopping 1.4 million euros per set. But this would get the trains to Delhi a good one-and-a-half months before schedule. ‘‘Keeping in view the increasing ridership and also the fact that four new sections are being thrown open in 2009, the need to get the trains earlier than scheduled was felt. And the e manufacturers have agreed to send the first two trains by air,’’ said a DMRC spokesperson. In all, the corporation will get 83 new broad gauge trains which will be added to the existing lines. Of these, nine trains are being manufactured in Germany while the rest are being built at a plant in Salvi, Gujarat. Additional orders have been placed for standard gauge trains which will run on some of the new lines. According to plans, the first train comprising four coaches will arrive by March 6. The train will be taken to the Khyber Pass depot by road and put through the mandatory checks. After testing is over, the first trains will be taken to the Yamuna bank depot for commissioning on Line 2. The process takes about 70 days; so relief can be expected by June next year. Officials said testing the first train takes the maximum time while later lots take 8-10 days per train. So after July, about two to three new trains will be commissioned and added to the system every month. DMRC officials said that the planes being used to fly the coaches to India — Antonovs — are special transportation aircraft. The coaches are loaded on special trailers and placed inside the planes with adequate insulation to prevent damage in transit. Meanwhile, Delhi Metro ridership touched an all-time high of 8.85 lakh on November 11, generating a revenue of Rs 1.05 crore. The number of people using the Metro has seen a sharp increase in the past couple of months. The ridership is usually highest on Mondays. For regular commuters, a ride during rush hour no longer offers the comfort that Delhi Metro earlier did, as it means travelling in jampacked trains choked to capacity. In fact, the situation is so bad that sometimes guards have had to push passengers into the train to facilitate closing of the doors. Though DMRC is taking measures like opening more token counters and optimising maintenance operations, till the new trains come in and the frequency of operation increases, the situation will not improve. At present, the system has 70 trains or 280 coaches, each of which is designed to carry a dense crush load of 1,300 passengers at a time. On an average, there are over 1,300 train trips daily which means that trains are running non-stop from 6 am to 11 pm. The maintenance activity happens after the system shuts down at night, or in a phased manner during offpeak hours. DMRC has projected a ridership of 20 lakh by 2010, when another 180 km will be added to the existing 65-km network. But since the ridership is already 9 lakh, the actual number of people using the Metro in 2010 is expected to be higher than the projections. ‘‘Seeing the increase in ridership, we added more than 100 coaches to the initial order and a total 616 coaches are going to be added to the network now. The manufacturing has begun and we will start getting deliveries by November this year. The new trains will be introduced into the system in a phased manner from April to June 2009,’’ a spokesperson said.