Delhi – Meerut RRTS Alstom Train’s 1st Body Shell Ready

Officials from National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) this week visited Alstom’s Savli & Maneja facilitates to inspect the 82.15 km Delhi – Meerut (RRTS) project‘s prototype train’s first body shell.

Alstom began manufacturing coaches in mid-2021 after getting awarded a Rs. 2577 crore contract in May 2020 for this semi high-speed rail line’s rolling stock. The train-sets’ highly-impressive final design was unveiled in September 2020.

Per NCRTC’s press release:

At the plant, NCRTC team reviewed the entire gamut of the activities for manufacturing of 6-car prototype RRTS Train. All the 6 cars of the first trainset are in different stages of final assembly. He also visited the bogie manufacturing and shell erection facility of the factory. Factory officials explained about their preparation for testing of individual cars and complete trainset. Shri Singh expressed satisfaction on the progress as all the key activities are progressing as per the scheduled timelines.

The team also visited the Propulsion factory at Maneja, where traction/auxiliary converters/inverters were in the process of manufacturing and testing. During the visit, Shri Singh interacted with the diverse teams working at the plant and closely took note of the processes and systems being followed. He appreciated the committed efforts of the teams at the plant and the adherence to safety and quality protocols.

NCRTC first provided a glimpse of the body shell in its 2021 year-end video.

Alstom will supply NCRTC with a total of 210 standard gauge aerodynamic lightweight coaches – 180 for long distance travel and 30 for local Meerut Metro MRTS services with 15 years of maintenance. NCRTC has the option to procure an additional 90 coaches and two years of maintenance to go with it.

The system’s aerodynamic trains will have a stainless steel / aluminium body, with a design speed of 180 kmph, operational speed of 160 kmph and average speed of 100 kmph.

Alstom aims to begin supplying trains to NCRTC’s Duhai Depot this summer for starting operations on the 18 km Priority Section (Sahibabad – Ghaziabad – Guldhar – Duhai) by 2024.

Out of the 210 coaches being procured, 180 coaches (30 train-sets of 6 coaches) will be used for long-distance end-to-end services from Delhi’s Sarai Kale Khan Station to Modipuram Station – view route map.

The rest 30 coaches will run as 10 trains in a configuration of 3 cars (see design) for servicing the Meerut Metro project with dedicated metro-only stations roughly every kilometer.

For more updates, check out the RRTS section or my Home Page! Sign up for free instant email notifications on new posts over here. Like this post? See how you can get early-access to updates and support the site over here.

– TMRG