In a first, broad-sized coaches will ply on the standard gauge track of the Magenta Line of the Delhi Metro, the Kalkaji Mandir-Botanical Garden section of which is set for a mega launch on 25th December 2017.

Senior DMRC officials also said all coaches to be introduced under Phase-III of the Delhi Metro rail network would be broad-sized only.

“Coaches measuring 3.2 m in width will be in operation on the new Magenta Line. This would also allow 30-40 more passengers than the capacity of coaches running on a standard gauge,” a senior DMRC official said.

Presently, carriages, measuring 2.9 m in width are in use on existing standard gauge corridors — Violet Line (Kashmiri Gate-Escorts Mujesar) and Green Line (Kirti Nagar-Mundka), another senior official said.

“This new Magenta Line would thus become the first standard gauge-based corridor to have broad-sized coaches plying on it,” he told PTI.

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Yellow Line (Samyapur Badli-Huda City Centre) and Blue Line (Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali) are among the broad guage lines on which wide coaches ply.

Set to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Magenta Line has many other firsts to its credit.

The new line has platform screen doors (PSDs) on all nine stations that will become operational from tomorrow, besides a high-tech signalling system that will allow the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to run trains with enhanced frequency.

While Kalkaji Mandir station falls in Delhi, Botanical Garden station is located in Noida.

“The size of a broad gauge line is 5 ft 6 in (1676 mm) and a standard gauge line is 4 ft 8.5 in (1435 mm). These broad-sized coaches (3.2 m) can smoothly ply on the newly-laid standard tracks,” the official said.

The DMRC authorities said that 10 trains would operate on this new line, while two would be kept on reserve, one each at Kalkaji Mandir and Botanical Garden stations.

The coaches running on this line have electronic information display, power charging capacity, including directly through USB ports, and seats in different colour shades.

The new trains are also energy-efficient and would save about 20 per cent energy compared to the existing coaches, the DMRC said.

“The trains on this line will have six cars, four of them would be driving cars. Earlier, we used to have 50 per cent of the cars as driving, and now in this line it would be 67 per cent,” the senior official said.

He said driving cars are those carriages, which, are power-driven, i.e., connected to overhead power supply.

The Botanical Garden has been developed as the metro’s first-ever interchange station outside the boundaries of Delhi.

With the commissioning of the new line, the travel time between south Delhi and Noida would be significantly reduced.

The direct ride on the Magenta Line from Kalkaji Mandir to Botanical Garden takes 19 minutes while travelling through Blue and Violet Lines between the old stations takes 52 minutes, with interchange facility at Mandi House station.

The new Kalkaji Mandir station is underground and an elevated walkway connects the new facility with the existing station, to facilitate passengers travelling towards Faridabad side.

Six of the nine new stations–Botanical Garden, Okhla Bird Sanctuary, Jamia Milia Islamia, Ishwar Nagar, Okhla NSIC and Kalkaji Mandir–have been decorated, reflecting themes of nature, Yoga, and cultural landmarks.

At the new Kalkaji Mandir station, ceramic murals of Lotus Temple, ISKCON Temple and nature-themed artworks, and paintings showing birds have been displayed.