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Bengal

Speed of rakes restored as work for E-W Metro concludes

Kolkata: The speed of Metro rakes, which has been slow during entry and exit from Esplanade station for the last two months, normalised from Thursday with work for the tunnel of East West Metro crossing Esplanade station being completed.

It may be mentioned that the work for boring the tunnel for the East West Metro corridor had started from the third week of January this year and as a precautionary measure, the speed of the rakes of the North-South Metro was fixed at 10 km/h at the entry and exit point.

This had resulted in Metro services often running slightly behind schedule. The normal time taken for a rake to cover the distance from Kavi Subhas to Noapara is 49 minutes but owing to the drop in speed, the average time became 51 minutes.

There have been allegations from passengers of some rakes being cancelled after the rush hour in the evening. With the schedule getting affected, excessive crowd in rakes, particularly during office time, had been a cause of worry for Metro authorities.

"The speed limit has been lifted and so we are hopeful of maintaining regularity with effect from today (Thursday)," a senior official of Metro Railways said.

At present, there are 13 AC rakes and 14 non-AC rakes operating on the route. On an average, around 20 rakes operate per day as maintenance work needs to be undertaken. "So until there are more rakes in our fleet we cannot increase services," the official added.

The Metro authorities have brought five rakes from the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, which will be pressed into service from time to time. The trial run of the rakes is going on in full swing. The first rake is expected to be rolled out from the end of this month.

"We have also brought three modern rakes from China which we expect to roll out in three months," the official said.

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