Rush hour: Metro on slow track

With Metro getting crowded by each passing day, Gurgaon residents are desperately waiting for the promised two extra coaches. While a relaxed journey has become a thing of past, during peak hours one ends up spending 10-15 minutes to get into a train.

The platform is so crowded during busy hours that I have to miss a couple of trains to get into one. It reminds me of Mumbai local, said Shreya Chawla, a regular Metro commuter. Everyday, hundreds of passengers have to jostle their way to get in to the overcrowded metro. With no one to manage the crowd, the situation becomes terrible especially during the peak hours.

Earlier, it used to be jam-packed only during the peak hours but now the rush is witnessed even during the lean hours. I am very surprised to see that even late night trains are running over capacity. This can get solved only if the number of coaches is increased and I hope that happens soon, said Kirti Sharma, a daily commuter.

In fact, there is a sizable crowd that uses the last Metro train that reaches the HUDA City Center station at 12:20 am. While the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has already introduced two six coach trains on line-3 (Noida City Centre to Dwarka Sector 21), line 2 (Jehangirpuri HUDA City Center) will get the extra coaches only by the end of February.

The additional coaches would be able to carry about 600 more passengers in every trip. A four coach train has a carrying capacity ranging from 1200 to 1500 passengers. The six coach train will carry about 1800 to 2100 passengers per train trip. DMRC plans to introduce 14 six coach trains, expanding the existing fleet of 44 trains to 58 train sets. In future, out of 58 trains, 51 will be six coach and 7 will be four coach.

On other hand, technical glitches continued to affect services on Gurgaon-Jahangirpuri Line on Tuesday as well. Trains were running at a restricted speed between two stations. The problem is only likely to be resolved by Wednesday, a Delhi Metro official said. Another Metro official said the problem was due to a track circuit failure.

Services on the Jahangirpuri-Gurgaon line were affected with trains running at a restricted speed due to a track circuit failure. They will continue to run slightly slow till Wednesday, a metro official said. However, services in the opposite direction were operating normally.