As a part of the celebration of 40 years of Kolkata Metro Railway, a heritage run of an NGEF rake was organised by the carrier today. The heritage run was conducted from Mahanayak Uttam Kumar station to Maidan station of Blue Line to revisit the Non-AC era of Metro Railway, Kolkata.
P Uday Kumar Reddy, general manager of Kolkata Metro Railway flagged off the heritage run in presence of eminent personalities including Mamata Shankar, famous danseuse and Goutam Ghosh, famous film director who incidentally had travelled in the Metro on the first day on 24 October, 1984.
During the ride, rake number N-16/18 was used which was inducted in Metro’s fleet on 13 May, 1992 and used for the last time for commercial service on 26 December 2020. According to the city Metro office, the rake manufactured from National Government Electrical Factory (NGEF) components is the showcase of self-reliance of Indian Railways’ own production unit at Perambur. This Metro rake was manufactured by ICF with electrics from NGEF. In the first commercial run, one such NGEF rake was introduced on 24 October, 1984. Out of the eight coaches of an NGEF rake, six coaches used to be driving motor coaches and non-driving motor coaches. These coaches used to be powered by motor coaches, each having four numbers of series type DC traction motors.