Soon, Kolkata Metro trains to run without motorman

Kolkata: Kolkatans are soon going to experience travelling "without a motorman" in Metro trains, first in the country; as Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation Limited (KMRCL) is all set to introduce fully automated rakes in the East-West Metro corridor likely to be commissioned with a truncated route around June this year.

A sleek, all air-conditioned demo coach built by Bangalore-based BEML Limited had reached Kolkata on Thursday. According to sources, altogether 14 rakes will be pressed into service among which around five are expected to arrive in the city within March this year. Each rake will have six coaches. Around Rs 900 crore would be spent for constructing the 14 new rakes, all of them would be of standard gauge. A rake of the East-West Metro will run from Salt Lake Sector V to Howrah Maidan and it will have six coaches. KMRCL has plans to start a trial run for the trains on the stretch of 5.3 km between Sector V and Salt Lake stadium on EM Bypass.

The stretch is likely to be thrown open for passenger train service from middle of this year following a successful completion of the trail run, a KMRCL official said. The East-West Metro Corridor covers a total distance of 16.6 km.

Prosenjit Chakraborty, Chief Engineer (Electrical) of KMRCL, said there are many striking features of these Metro rakes which are being constructed at BEML. The new rakes will be operated by following the Automatic Train Operation (ATO) and Automatic Train Protection (ATP). Under the ATO system, the motormen will no longer be required to operate the rakes as they would function through an automated mechanism. Each coach will have two surveillance cameras each on both sides. There will be CCTVs at the Metro stations which would help motormen to monitor on screen the boarding or de-boarding of passengers. It will have regenerative breaking system.

According to the official, all these automated rakes will have the facility of operating trains without a motorman. A rake comprising six coaches will have a capacity of carrying 2,068 passengers at a time, of which there will be 286 seating arrangements and around 1,782 passengers can stand while travelling in the train. Standard international procedure has been followed while constructing the rakes so that parts can be easily available in the international market. There will two AC machines each having a capacity of around 12 tonne at each end of the coach.

Unlike the existing Metros, all the doors of these rakes can be thrown open in case of an emergency evacuation so that the passengers can take the walkway to reach to the nearest station.