Metro to replace steel-made third rail with aluminum

Kolkata: In a significant move, Metro Railway, Kolkata has decided to replace the existing steel-made current conducting third rail with aluminium third rail in order to reduce the loss of energy along with an aim to stop carbon emission on the Blue Line (Dakshineswar-Kavi Subhas).

According to the Metro Railway, the highly conductive aluminium third rail has the capacity to reduce the system voltage drops and subsequent energy losses, due to its superior electrical conductivity.

Less voltage drop in the third rail will help to achieve faster acceleration during the running of the Metro rakes. As a result, the journey timing will be lesser when acceleration becomes good.

It will also help the authorities to run services at significantly lesser intervals during the peak hours. Apart from time, the operational cost will also go down as this new system will save a huge amount of energy. will be saved which will in turn help Kolkata Metro to reduce its operational cost.

Apart from cost efficiency and time-saving issues, this initiative will also help to reduce carbon emissions by 50000 tons in its lifetime. Also, the aluminium third rail requires less maintenance and uses less heat than the steel-made third rail. Such replacement work has already been done for the metro rail in Singapore, London, Moscow, Berlin, Munich and Istanbul. The preparatory work of the pedestal base foundation has already been done at Girish Park ‘Y’ siding and Maidan ‘Y’ siding. Metro Railway is going to use premix concrete for the foundation to avoid any adulteration and better performance at the site.

The aluminium third rail is manufactured in Germany and has already arrived at Kolkata Port in the last week of July and is expected to reach the site of installation in a couple of days.

Approximately five-kilometre-long material has been received in this shipment. Metro Railway Kolkata has a plan to install a 35-kilometre long aluminium third rail in the next two years. The next shipment is expected to arrive in October.