Chennai Metro Rail In Progress
By Arnab Ghosh, Gaea News NetworkSunday, January 23, 2011
CHENNAI, INDIA (GaeaTimes.com)- Alstom Projects has joined hands with Larson & Toubro to bag a whopping INR 450 crore contract for designing and setting up metro rail tracks in Chennai. The entire work is slated to be completed in 4 years. Metro rail has said that the company will be responsible for manufacturing the laying tracks for the total corridor one and two. The rail track will be made according to the standard gauge specifications. The total length of the Metro in Chennai will be 45 km out of which 21 km will be on elevated tracks. The remaining 24 km will be under ground. The standard gauge has been adopted by the Metro Rail authority because in Chennai roads are narrow. It will require less road space for the elevated part resulting in less acquisition time.
As a matter of fact the majority of Metro rail systems in various cities of the world including Bangalore and Delhi use standard gauge track. A Metro railway spokesperson said “This will also reduce cost of construction because standard gauge tracks require tunnels with a smaller diameter. Underground tunnels are very expensive, costing around Rs 300 crore per kilometre”. From various perspective standard gauge saves money in day to day cost including energy consumption. An official said that Chennai metro stations will be positioned strategically so that metro rail commuters can access existing rail stations without much difficulty.
To cope up with the rising passenger load metro network is being planned in several metro cities in India. After tasting success in capital city of India metro rail is now coming up in Bangalore and Chennai.
