The upcoming Alandur Metro Station of the Chennai Metro Rail will be unique. It will have multi-level stations wherein two rail corridors will function, one above the other. This will be the only station where two corridors will intersect.

Alandur is being modelled as a signature metro station and as an interchange station in the Chennai Metro Rail elevated stations. It has been identified for two aspects – its location and as an interchange station.

The railway lines of two corridors (corridor -1: Washermanpet- Airport through Mount Road-Guindy and corridor-2: Chennai Central to St. Thomas Mount through Kilpauk- Thirumangalam- Koyambedu- SIDCO) will merge at 26.55 m and 35.41 m levels respectively. Passengers from the two corridors can swap the direction of travel only at this station.

According to Chennai Metro Rail Ltd, the Alandur station will have four access points on the ground floor – two for entry/exit from the front and two more on the rear. Past the access points, there will be ticket counters, one at either side of the lobby. Crossing the lobby, passengers can move on to level-1 using any of the eight escalators and four lifts.

Level-1 is the alighting point for those travelling on the Guindy- OTA- Airport route. From this level there are 4 escalators and lifts leading to level-2, from where passengers bound for the Koyambedu- SIDCO-St. Thomas Mount route can embark.

A Detailed Project Report relating to the Chennai Metro Rail Project was prepared and submitted by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, which has successfully designed and implemented the Delhi Metro Rail Project. The report envisages the creation of two initial corridors under the proposed phase-1 of the Chennai Metro Rail Project.

Tentatively, phase-1 of the project is scheduled for completion in the financial year 2014-2015, for which construction is in progress.

> raja@thehindu.co.in

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