Magenta Line set for grand launch

New Delhi: In a first, broad-sized coaches will ply on the standard gauge track of the Magenta Line of the Delhi Metro, the Kalkaji Mandir-Botanical Garden section, which is set for a mega launch on Christmas.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the newly-built Magenta Line of the Delhi Metro is an example of modernising urban transport and making travel between Delhi and Noida faster and convenient.

"This new line is yet another example of how we are modernising urban transportation. I will also travel on the Metro tomorrow (Monday). This year, I have had the opportunity to inaugurate and travel in the Kochi as well as Hyderabad Metros," Modi tweeted.

The first train will be flagged off from Botanical Garden Metro station. Meanwhile, senior DMRC officials said all coaches to be introduced under Phase-III of the Delhi Metro rail network would be broad-sized only. "Coaches measuring 3.2 meters in width will be in operation on the new Magenta Line. This would also allow 30-40 more passengers than the capacity of coaches running on a standard gauge," a senior DMRC official said.

Presently, carriages, measuring 2.9 meters in width, are in use on existing standard gauge corridors – Violet Line (Kashmiri Gate-Escorts Mujesar) and Green Line (Kirti Nagar-Mundka), another senior official said. "This new Magenta Line would thus become the first standard gauge-based corridor to have broad-sized coaches plying on it," he said.

Yellow Line (Samyapur Badli-Huda City Centre) and Blue Line (Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali) are among the broad gauge lines on which wide coaches ply. The new line has platform screen doors (PSDs) on all nine stations that will become operational from Monday and open for commuters by 5pm, besides a high-tech signalling system that will allow the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to run trains with enhanced frequency. "The size of a broad gauge line is 5 ft 6 in (1676 mm) and a standard gauge line is 4 ft 8.5 in (1435 mm). These broad-sized coaches (3.2 m) can smoothly ply on the newly-laid standard tracks," the official said.

DMRC authorities said that 10 trains would operate on the new line, while two would be kept on reserve, one each at Kalkaji Mandir and Botanical Garden stations. "The coaches running on this line have electronic information display, power charging capacity without adaptor, and seats in different colour shades, DMRC said.

"The trains on this line will have six cars, four of them would be driving cars. Earlier, we used to have 50 per cent of the cars as driving, and now in this line it would be 67 per cent," the senior official said.

He said driving cars are those carriages, which, are power-driven, i.e., connected to overhead power supply.