Delhi Metro to Transfer 98 Coaches from Yellow Line to Red Line
Keeping an eye on the under construction 9.41 km Ghaziabad extension of the Red Line and upcoming deliveries of 258 new coaches, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has interestingly decided to rebalance its rolling stock and transfer 98 coaches from the Yellow Line to the Red Line between April 2017 and February 2018. In order to achieve this, the DMRC late-last month invited bids from transportation companies for safely moving the coaches from the Khyber Pass Depot to the Shastri Park Depot on top of trailers.
Notice Inviting Tenders
Transportation of 98 Broad Gauge Metro Coaches from DMRC Khyber Pass Depot, Delhi to DMRC Shastri Park Depot, Delhi along with Loading & Unloading arrangement, movement related permissions from concerned authorities, supervision, crane, trailer, tools, insurance etc. – link to notice
The DMRC has estimated this contract to cost Rs 1.98 crores. The last date for submitting bidding documents is 11am on December 23, 2016 after which the bids will be opened & evaluated at 11:30am. As per the tender notice, the DMRC will periodically issue transfer notices to the selected transportation company and offer a minimum of 4 coaches at a time. The company will then have to move the coaches within 10 days of receiving that notice.
Location of Yellow Line’s Khyber Pass & Red Line’s Shastri Park depots – view Delhi Metro Phase 3 map & info
Take an excellent tour inside the Delhi Metro’s OCC Centre at the Shastri Park Depot and stabling shed at the Khyber Pass Depot here: How Delhi Metro Manages to be a Model of Efficiency Every Day.
The door-to-door distance between both depots is barely 8 kms, so the transfer process itself shouldn’t be a big deal. What I’m interested to now find out is what DMRC’s operating game plan is. The Red Line currently has 19 trains of 4-coaches & 10 trains of 6-coaches, and the DMRC previously announced plans to add another 38 new coaches to convert the 4-coach trains into 6-coach trains. Now, with 98 additional coaches about to be sent to the Red Line, would the DMRC operate a few 8-coach trains? Is the plan to add 38 coaches to the Red Line still intact? Or will they use 38/98 coaches from the Yellow Line to convert the remaining Red Line trains into 6-coaches and use the rest 60 coaches to run 10 additional trains of 6-coaches for a grand total of 39 trains of 6-coaches? For answers, we’ll have to wait to find out.
For more updates, check out the Delhi section of The Metro Rail Guy!
– TMRG
Great news for red line users lyk me..it was about tym.
Bad news for yellow line users like me. 98 coaches is a lot!
There will be no impact as they’re simultaneously also adding 122 new coaches (see complete plan) to the Yellow Line:
• 14 new eight coach trains will be added
• 10 coaches will be used for converting 6 coach trains into 8 coaches
This line is the backbone of the system and I don’t ever expect DMRC to make detrimental decisions to affect services on it 🙂
Oh, yes, I had seen that. So why this complication of moving coaches from one line to the other? Any technical upgrades? Temporary under-capacity in the Red line. I know the Red line is the most crowded line in the DMRC network and desperately needs more capacity.
It’s related to maintenance and elimination of operational issues. Usually good practice to have homogeneous lines than have a mishmash of different subsystems interfacing with each other. Sort of similar to how Indigo Airlines only operates A320s or Southwest Airlines operates B737s to keep training, technology & maintenance costs low.
To be very honest, I do expect they will move trains off the yellow line when the Phase III is started. Load should come down significantly, especially in the Rajiv Chowk to Hauz Khas segment, as alternate routes open up. Shouldn’t it?
probably yes. once the heritage line opens violet line too will struggle. Although a boon for the yellow line walas.
Yea, expecting ridership to initially fall but later pick back up due to latent ridership.
This is interesting indeed! Guess they will shift out only the Rotem coaches from the yellow line as the Bombardier ones will perhaps require more tuning with the signalling systems to co-exist with the Rotems already plying on the red line. Any which ways – a great move.
Even i am expecting this.
Bingo – all Rotems will be moved out.
So, the new coaches on the Yellow line will be Bombardier coaches ?
Hey TMRG, will DMRC also add new coaches to the Red line or is it like yellow and blue line will get new coaches while red line gets old coaches..please clarify.
They were going to get 38 new coaches from the new 258 coaches, but like I said, there”s a possibility that instead of deploying those 38 new ones, they’ll use 38 old ones from the Yellow Line to convert and then use the balance 60 to form 10 trains.
@abheek.. bhai red line is not the most crowded line but the issue is the coaches on this line is not according to the crowd it handles. Its heavily crowded in peak hours. There was a long pending requirements to introduce 8 coach trains on this line. Athough I also hope that yellow line services is not affected becasus as rightly said by TMRG, it is the backbone of delhi metro.
Ya boss, that’s what I meant….too many people per coach. Yellow line has high ridership but plenty of trains, even in peak hours. The only problem is bunching…..six minutes between trains and then 3 trains back to back. Savvy riders like me will skip a couple, but new folks just crowd into the trains.
In Red Line 6 coach trains if runs at a frequency of 3 minutes will do justice.
However in my opinion, Red Line average speed is comparatively less than all the others Metro Lines, hence average speed needs to be increase atleast by 5-10 km/hr
It’s weird that they need a contractor for this. I know there’s a track at Rajiv Chowk that connects the Blue Line tracks with the Yellow line tracks. Don’t they have something like that for the red line too? Perhaps at Kashmere Gate? It’ll be cheaper to just shunt them using tracks…
Do they really have an interconnect of Blue & Yellow lines at RC? I mean, they are at different levels, so how is it possible? Pls throw some light on this TMRG!
Wondering if that was indeed the case then why cudnt the Airport Express line be interconnected at Rajiv Chowk which could have benefited millions of travelers!
I haven’t seen any diagram, schematic, plan, news article on an interconnection between Yellow & Blue at RC. As far as I know, such a connection is not present, but the construction aspect is not possible – they built it one in Bangalore between the Purple & Green lines – see this post
Ummang – there’s no connection between Yellow & Red lines – one’s elevated and the other is underground with a big grade difference. If they had it, then they would have definitely utilized that 🙂
when will kashmere gate to ito heritage line start
@nitish…not this year.. will open in Q1 2017. Kashmere gate station is still not ready.
All of them?! So yellow line will be left with only Bombardier trains?
Yes, that’s what I believe is going to happen.
We have a confirmation on this TMRG!. Have a look : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Metro-set-to-end-coach-mismatch/articleshow/55904461.cms
Great! The author of that article follows me on Twitter and must have reached out to the DMRC after reading my post.
Is violet line extension to kashmere gate opening on 26th January,2017?
No, still a couple months left due to civil work pending at Kashmere Gate. Followed by that, they need to have a safety inspection performed.
Please increase the average speed of Red Line by atleast 10 km/hr
Just curious to know why they didn’t employed Bombardiers on the Violet and Green line ??
BEML placed the lowest bidder for those lines’ rolling stock.
Of the total 162 bombardier coaches, yellow line is getting 112(8*14)+ 10(1*10) i.e. a total of 122 coaches. What remains is for blue line i.e. 40 coaches. If the 98 old rotem coaches are being transferred to red line, how is the deficiency going to be cured? Moreover the new rs13 rotem coaches to be given to red line, will they be given to blue line, because red line is already getting surplus?