Photo expo organised to bid adieu to non-AC rakes of Metro in city

kolkata: After nearly four decades, non-AC rakes will become a matter of past as Metro Railway bid nostalgic farewell to the bogies on the occasion of its 37th foundation day on Wednesday.

"To give befitting farewell, we have organised a photo exhibition depicting glorious past of the country's first Metro, present scenario and its future projects inside a Non-AC Metro rake (Rake No-N 12/14) at Mahanayak Uttam Kumar station," said Kolkata Metro Railway general manager Manoj Joshi after inaugurating the photo-exhibition.

He ceremonially sent off the Non-AC Metro rake Rake No-N 12/14 to Noapara Carshed in the evening.

First Metro Motormen - Sanjay Sil and Tapan Nath also shared their experiences.

"The first service chugged off from Esplanade at 8.30 am on October 24, 1984. There was no publicity before the inauguration. There was huge rush of passengers that day at Esplanade Metro station. I still remember that I was escorted by police inside Esplanade metro station due to huge crowd of people outside the station," said Nath, who was directly recruited by the Kolkata Metro Railway and took four-month training in Moscow before running the commercial service in the city.

According to sources, there are 14 non-AC rakes. One rake is already at Howrah Rail Museum. The rest will be kept at Noarapara Cardshed. The AC rake was added to the fleet in 2010. Kolkata Metro Railway is now being operated with the help of 22 air-conditioned rakes for commercial services. Six air-conditioned rakes are kept as reserved.

Persons who have been traveling in the non AC rakes since 1990s turned nostalgic.

"We have emotional attachments with non AC rakes. At least one such c rake should be kept operational," said Prantika Basu, resident of Tollygunge.

Meanwhile, Sealdah Metro station will be opened within a few months and East- West Metro from Salt Lake Sector V to Howrah Maidan will be operational within a year's time. The first phase of the three other Metro projects i.e. Noapara to Bimanbandar, Kavi Subhas to Salt Lake Sector V and Joka to Majherhat will be completed within the next two years.