The 2023 was a year of achievements for the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC). This year, the NCRCTC achieved a significant milestone in its journey to provide the country with an advanced and transformative transit service through the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor.

On October 20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s first RRTS and flagged off the Namo Bharat train. With this, the 17-kilometer-long Priority Section between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot was operationalised for the public.

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The construction of the RRTS corridor began in 2019, and commencing the operation of the Priority Section within just four years is a significant accomplishment. It is especially remarkable considering that it is an entirely new system with all the sub-systems and trains of the RRTS corridor having been developed in an entirely new manner.

Along with this, with the relentless efforts of Team NCRCTC, the construction of the corridor continued to expand in the direction of Delhi and Meerut, progressing consistently. As the countdown of this year has begun, NCRCTC has reached a stage in the journey where trial runs have commenced in the sections beyond the Priority Section.

For the NCRCTC, 2023 began with the commencement of trial runs on the Priority Section. These trial runs began in the first week of January 2023. During these trial runs, various sub-systems of the RRTS, such as the rolling stock, ETCS-2 signalling on the LTE network, ballastless track, and overhead equipment, were tested independently and later in synergy with each other to ensure their safe and compliant implementation and compatibility.

Stepping ahead in this direction, in June 2023, the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) approved the operation of Namo Bharat train services on the Priority Section between Sahibabad and Duhai Depot. With the approval from CMRS, the Priority Section of the RRTS became the first railway system in the country to be opened for operation on the entire section with a maximum operational speed of 160 kilometres per hour.

“In the journey of providing rapid regional connectivity in the NCR, another crucial milestone was achieved when the tunnelling work for the entire Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor was completed successfully. This corridor has a total of four underground stations: Anand Vihar in Delhi, and Meerut Central, Bhainsali, and Begumpul in Meerut,” a spokesperson of the NCRTC said on Monday.

The tunnelling journey of the NCRTC commenced in February 2022, when Sudarshan 4.1 (Tunnel Boring Machine) was lowered into the launching shaft built at Anand Vihar, New Delhi to bore the tunnel between Anand Vihar towards New Ashok Nagar.

On August 29, 2023, with the completion of boring the 2-kilometer-long tunnel between Anand Vihar and Sahibabad, the entire tunnelling work for the RRTS corridor was completed. It is a remarkable feat to construct parallel tunnels in the entire 12-kilometer-long underground section in less than 18 months, achieved by using seven state-of-the-art Sudarshan (TBM).

To construct these tunnels, more than 80,000 precast segments have been used. These high-precision precast tunnel segments were cast at the state-of-the-art casting yards established at Karkardooma, New Delhi, and Shatabdi Nagar, Meerut.

The diameter of the RRTS tunnels is 6.5 m which is highly optimised as compared to global benchmarks of tunnels for a similar design speed of 180 Kmph with wider and higher rolling stock.

The NCRTC aims to operationalize the entire Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor by June 2025, and witnessing the pace at which construction work is progressing, this destination is now within reach.