Every ten minutes, there will be a metro rail service between Koyambedu and St Thomas Mount – the first leg of the Chennai Metro Rail project that is likely to be inaugurated soon.

On Sunday, the Minister for Urban Development, Venkaiah Naidu, said the first phase of the Chennai Metro Rail is ready and could be inaugurated immediately after the by-election in RK Nagar in Chennai. There is an election Code of Conduct now in place, he said at a meeting.

From Koyambedu, it will take 17 minutes to reach St Thomas Mount, a distance of 10.1 km, with the train stopping at each station for 30 seconds. There are six stations between the two destinations. The stations are being readied for services to start, said an official of Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL), a special purpose vehicle implementing the project.

Free rides initially To begin with, nine trains will operate in the stretch. Each train will have a capacity of 1,276 passengers – 176 seated and 1,100 standing. The average speed of the train will be 35 kmph, the official said.

The CMRL is considering a plan to allow free rides for a few days to help public experience the Metro rail, he said.

And, operating the entire rail operations remotely is the Operations Control Centre, the nerve centre of the Chennai Metro. The centre’s systems were installed by Siemens, which was also involved in setting up the signal and telecommunications systems for CMRL, he said.

Advanced features Officials in the centre control the entire metro rail movement, including the speed of the trains. The driver's role will be to start the train, and to open and close the doors. Initially, the trains will be manually handled; while going forward, it will be in the auto mode, he said.

Mediapersons today were given a preview of the centre.

Similarly, work on the 27-hectare Koyambedu depot is complete with advanced features like automatic cleaning of coaches. This depot is controlled by a separate centre called Depot Control Centre. For the first time in India, the depot has ballast-less track. All underground services had to be constructed before laying the track. This will provide maintenance free track and clean environment, T Archunan, Chief General Manager, Elevated Corridor, CMRL.

12 storage lines The first few coaches manufactured by Alstom were imported from the company’s plant in Brazil. Subsequently, the coaches were manufactured in its facility at Sri City, Tada, Andhra Pradesh. In the first lot, a total of 42 trains will be supplied to CMRL. Of this, 25 train sets have so far arrived at the CMRL depot.

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