Mumbai Metro Line-3 Goes Full Throttle, Gets All Nine Trainsets For Phase 1 Operation Between Aarey And BKC

The Mumbai Metro Line-3 project, got a big boost when the ninth train arrived at the Aarey Car Depot in the city on Friday.

With this all the nine trains required for the Phase I operation of the line between Aarey and Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) are now ready to be deployed.

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC), which is executing the Metro Line 3 has awarded a contract valued at approximately 315 million Euros to the French manufacturer Alstom for supply of 31 metro trainsets of eight cars each.

While the complete designing and development of the metro cars is being undertaken out of Alstom’s Bangalore engineering centre, the 248 metro cars are being manufactured from its state-of-the-art rolling stock manufacturing unit at Sri City in Chennai.

According to an MMRC official, trials for the rakes will be undertaken around mid-November. Thereafter, the agency will approach the Research, Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) to initiate their trials.

The Aqualine trainsets have been custom-designed for Mumbai and will be able to accommodate at least 3000 people on a single trip, easing daily commute for Mumbaikars.

It is also the first time that any metro train in India will have 75 per cent motorization, enabling quick acceleration and deceleration thereby bringing about greater efficiency in operations.

The trains will also be equipped with regenerative braking system aiding significant reduction in carbon emissions.

Trial Run in November

The 33.5-km long Line-3 corridor running along Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ is the first underground metro corridor of Mumbai.

It will connect Cuffe Parade business district in the extreme south of the city to SEEPZ in the north-central with 26 underground and one at-grade station.

The Mumbai Metro Rail is currently gearing up to start trial run of the first phase between Aarey and BKC in November. This follows the authority's successful completion of the first long-distance trial from MIDC to Vidyanagari Metro station and back to SEEPZ, covering 17 kilometres.

Once the trial runs are concluded, MMRC will approach the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) to inspect the network. Commercial operation can begin after a green signal is received from CMRS.

A noteworthy feature is that Metro line 3 is the first UTO (Unattended Train Operation) project in Mumbai. In the initial phase, these trains will have a pilot onboard. However, after a few months, MMRC intends to seek CMRS approval for the operation of the trains in the driverless mode.