Delhi Metro all set to convert 120 more 6-coach trains into eight coaches

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (DMRC) is undertaking the conversion of its remaining fleet of 6-coach trains into 8- coach trains by adding 120 additional coaches on the Red (Line-1 i.e. Rithala to Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda), Yellow (Line-2 i.e. HUDA City Centre to Samaypur Badli) and Blue Line (Line-3/4 i.e. Dwarka Sec-21 to Noida Electronic City/Vaishali) of the Delhi Metro network. The conversion is expected to be completed by the end of this year after which all the trains running on these Lines will be 8-coaches only.

According to DMRC, by the end of this month, the process of converting all twelve 6-coach trains on Yellow Line into 8-coaches will be completed thereby taking the total number of 8-coach trains on this line to 64. Subsequently, the remaining nine 6-coach trains on Blue Line and thirty-nine 6-coach trains on Red Line will be converted into 8-coach trains by the end of this year taking the total number of 8-coach trains on these lines to 74 and 39 respectively.

Out of these 120 coaches, 40 coaches have been procured from Bombardier Transportation and 80 coaches from Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML).

This activity is being carried out to increase the carrying capacity of the three main corridors of the Delhi Metro i.e. Red (Line-1), Blue (Line-3/4) and Yellow (Line-2) Lines which contribute to almost 40-50 % of passengers utilization every day. It is noteworthy to mention that these Lines which were initially made operational under Phase-I were built on Broad Gauge having provision of running trains up to the 8-coach formation.

The rest of the 6-coach trains of Line 5 to Line 9 and Airport Express Line which were subsequently taken up in Phase-II and Phase-III are all built on Standard Gauge having provision of running trains up to 6-coach formation only.

The Delhi Metro currently has a fleet of 336 train sets comprising 181 six coach trains, 133 eight coach trains, and 22 four coach trains across all its corridors.