The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has introduced its first ever set of two 8-coach trains for passenger services on the Red Line (Line-1 i.e. Rithala to Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda) from today.

These trains have been converted from the existing fleet of 39 six coach trains.

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With this induction, now all the trains on this Line will be stopping near the far end of the platforms to accommodate the 8-coach trains accordingly.

“This head stopping (trains stopping near the end of the platform) is being implemented for the convenience of the passengers waiting on the platforms for the trains,” stated DMRC in a press statement.

The Delhi metro informed that all the 78 additional coaches being added on these 39 trains of Red Line have been procured from M/s Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML).

These additional coaches will increase the carrying capacity of the Red Line (Line-1) which was extended up to Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda in Ghaziabad in the year 2019 with a total length of approx. 34 KM.

The conversion of 6-coach trains to 8-coach trains on the Red Line is being done in a graded manner to ensure that there is no impact on the regular passenger services and is likely to be completed by 2024.

The Red Line is the oldest and one of the most significant corridors of the DMRC network in terms of passenger utilization (around 4.7 lakh per day at present) with 4 existing interchange stations namely Welcome, Kashmere Gate, Inderlok and Netaji Subhash Place.

Two more stations namely Pulbangash and Pitampura on the Red Line will also become interchange stations after the completion of Phase-IV.

Last year, the conversion of all 6-coach trains into 8-coach trains on the Yellow Line (Line-2 i.e. Samaypur Badli to HUDA City Centre) and Blue Line (i.e.Line-3/4 Dwarka Sec-21 to Noida Electronic City/Vaishali) was completed successfully by adding additional coaches to their remaining fleet of 6-coach trains, added DMRC.

These Lines which were initially made operational under Phase-I were built on Broad Gauge having provision of running trains up to 8-coach formation.

The remaining corridors of the Delhi Metro network including the Airport Express Line which were subsequently constructed in Phase-II and Phase-III were built on standard Gauge having provision of running trains up to 6-coach formation only.

It is noteworthy to mention that the first 6-coach train service on the Delhi Metro network was also introduced on the Red Line (Line-1) only in the year 2013.

The Delhi Metro currently has a fleet of 336 train sets comprising 176 six coach trains, 138 eight coach trains and 22 four coach trains across all its corridors (excluding Rapid Metro, Gurugram and Noida Metro).