On Christmas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the plaque marking the inauguration of Delhi Metro’s new Magenta Line at Botanical Garden in Noida.
Here is all you need to know about Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line:
Delhi Metro Magenta Line’s first phase will cover 12.64 km and will connect nine stations, namely: Botanical Garden, Okhla Bird Sanctuary, Kalindi Kunj, Jasola Vihar Shaheen Bagh, Okhla Vihar, Jamia Milia Islamia, Sukhdev Vihar, Okhla NSIC and Kalkaji Mandir.
The line will later be expanded up to Janakpuri West. Botanical Garden will serve as an inter-change station, allowing commuters to switch between the Yellow and Magenta lines.
The train will reduce the travel time from 52 minutes to 19 minutes and will also bring down the cost of the journey from Rs 50 to Rs 30.
The Magenta line will have driverless trains, unattended Train Operation (UTO) will make it the first unmanned metro line, though it will run under human surveillance for the initial few days. The operational control center (OCC) will supervise the compartments.
Platform screen doors have been built to ensure that passengers safety. The doors will only open only after the train comes to a halt and coach doors open.
It will also reportedly be wi-fi enabled, will have a backrest for commuters near wheelchair area and will also have USB ports. The coaches running on Magenta Line will have electronic information display, power charging capacity and seats in different colour shades.
The train has been brought from South Korea. Japan, France and cities like Vancouver, London, Kuala Lumpur already use variations of such physically unattended train lines.
The train will use CTBC (Communication Based Train Control) signalling technology that allows the train to move with a frequency of 90-100 seconds.
On the Magenta Line, broad-sized coaches will ply on the standard gauge track of the Magenta Line. Coaches measuring 3.2 m in width will be in operation on the new Line. This will also allow 30-40 more passengers than the capacity of coaches running on a standard gauge.
Yellow Line (Samyapur Badli-Huda City Centre) and Blue Line (Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali) are among the broad guage lines on which wide coaches ply.
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 Botanical Garden has been developed as the metro’s first-ever interchange station outside the boundaries of Delhi.
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.
On 19 December, a Delhi Metro train reportedly crashed into a wall on Tuesday during a test run, just before Modi was scheduled to inaugurate the Kalkaji Mandir-Botanical Garden corridor (Magenta line).