Kolkata Metro: Trial Runs Begin to Majerhat Station on Purple Line

Metro Railway, Kolkata – the owner & operator of Kolkata Metro on Saturday started trial runs on Kolkata Metro Line-3 (Purple Line)’s 1.25 km Taratala – Majerhat section.

This milestone comes 1 year and 2 months after the Purple Line’s first section, a 6.49 km elevated route connecting Joka – Taratala with 6 stations on Diamond Harbour Road was opened in November 2022.

Taratala – Majerhat’s viaduct was built by Simplex Infrastructures through a contract awarded way back in 2011 and consists of 1 new elevated station at Majerhat built by GPT Infraprojects which sits right on top of 7 tracks of the Indian Railways (view on Google Maps) connecting Sealdah – Budge Budge.

The first run towards Majerhat took 13 minutes to complete. As always, the sole objective of this run was to check for Schedule of Dimensions (SOD) clearances and observe the train’s interaction with the civil structure to ensure there are no physical obstructions along the way.

Per Metro Railway, Kolkata’s press release:

AC trial rake (MR-417) started from Taratala station at 12.16 hrs. and after covering 1.25 kms it reached Majerhat station at 12.19 hrs. In return journey, this rake started from Majerhat at 12.43 hrs and it reached Taratala at 12.46 hrs. During this trial run, the rake travelled with a maximum speed of 50 km/hr.

Few photos shared by Metro Railway, Kolkata on X:

The construction of Majerhat Station, along with 2 others at Taratala and Behala Bazar, was originally awarded to Gammon India in April 2012 under Package JMS-2. However, after the collapse of an adjacent 1960’s era Railway Overbridge (ROB) in September 2018, Gammon abandoned a part of the Majerhat site due to design issues which led to re-tendering for its balance works in mid-June 2020.

Here’s a video by Metro Railway, Kolkata posted by ‘West Bengal With Rohit’ on YouTube:

In the coming weeks various subsystems like the signaling system will be tested. The train’s response to being operated at different speeds & braking will be monitored along with the behavior of the track system.

The next section of the Purple Line to open will be the Majerhat – Mominpur section. That 1.326 km elevated section with a 50m steel girder span between piers P288-P289 is currently under construction by GPT Infraprojects through a Rs. 196 crore contract awarded in August 2020.

The line north of Mominpur will run underground all the way to Esplanade to form a three-line interchange with Line-1 (Blue Line) and Line-2 (Green Line). Larsen & Toubro had started barricading works for its civil work in September 2023, so I reckon we’re at least 5 years away from seeing the Purple Line getting connected to the rest of the Kolkata Metro network.

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– TMRG