Kolkata Metro will continue to have problems with rakes, thanks to its construction

KOLKATA: If all goes well for the Metro, it will have 28 new rakes, 14 of them of Chinese make, by the end of 2020. But will these be enough to run sufficient services along the network to which several more kilometres are likely to be added by then?

Officials are keeping their fingers crossed. One thing is clear though, Metro Railway will always struggle to get adequate advanced rakes for its original alignment that includes the underground section.With most rake manufacturers declining to build rakes for the Metro or demanding higher rates, Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Chennai, may remain the sole supplier.
Why is this so important? With this situation prevailing, none of the rakes reaching the Metro, save for the 14 ones from China, will be as advanced as those used by other networks, including the E-W Metro Corridor in Kolkata. The rakes built by ICF for Metro Railway will be prone to defects and glitches. This doesn’t mean that ICF is incapable of building advanced rakes but those needed for the Metro’s underground section are different.
“Even Dalian in China isn’t interested in a repeat order for rakes for Metro Railway. When the company accepted the first order for 14 rakes, engineers there weren’t aware of the complications involved. Coaches for Metro Railway have to be custom built and require a specialized assembly line. Creating a separate assembly line involves additional costs. As Metro’s tunnels are narrower than those of the E-W Corridor or networks in other parts of the country, it can’t use normal rakes. In fact, the rakes for the New Garia-Airport (via Rajarhat) and Joka-BBD stretches will be different,” an official said.
What ICF does is build the meter-gauge shells for Metro Railway’s rakes and mount them on broad-gauge bogies. It then assembles components from several suppliers in this unique mixture of a broad and metre gauge rake. When trials are finally undertaken, several components don’t match up with the Metro’s old systems or with each other, resulting in problems. This has happened with some of the latest Medha rakes already.