Trolley run 33m below Hooghly, stn check push for E-W project

Kolkata: Metro Railway general manager Manoj Joshi and other senior officials on Thursday took part in the maiden trolley run along the 3.8km Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section, halting to check the four stations en route. Undoubtedly, the most exciting part of their journey was rolling through the ambitious 520m east-bound tunnel 33m below the Hooghly river bed between Howrah and Mahakaran stations.
Aboard four trolleys, Team Joshi included senior officials like KMRC MD Manas Sarkar.
The twin river tunnels are part of the 16km East-West Metro corridor — or the country’s answer to Eurostar — that currently does a truncated 6.6km run between Sector V and Phoolbagan, and will eventually join Howrah Maidan in the west with Sector V in the east. Even as KMRC is executing the project, Metro Railway is the umbrella body for Kolkata’s rapid transit system, including East-West Metro. The debut trolley run was, therefore, conducted by none other than GM Joshi himself.
“Trolley inspections are fun because the third rail is not charged and one can get off anywhere,” a KMRC official said. The trolleys started rolling from terminal Howrah Maidan station at 10.30am, stopped at the stations dotting the stretch, before ending around 1pm at Esplanade. Joshi checked work progress of cross passages inside the east-bound tunnel where track-laying till Esplanade was completed in July. Track-laying of the westward tunnel has been done till Mahakaran station.
“In another 10 days, the 800m stretch till Esplanade (west-bound tunnel) should be over, an engineer said. And then we start bridging the 2.5km Esplanade-Sealdah section of both the tunnels by laying the tracks,” an engineer said. This part of the track-laying has been delayed because of the disaster on August 31 in 2019, when a TBM hit an aquifer at Bowbazar, causing severe subsidence.
Afcons is the construction major contracted to build the 3.8km Howrah Maidan-Esplanade segment, including the 520m underwater tunnels. It is also building the stations. Joshi got off at the stations to survey the traction substations, power supply systems, ventilation, air-conditioning, platform screen doors and station entry-exits.
Kalindee-Rahee, a joint venture company, is the one contracted to lay the ballastless tracks from Sector V to Howrah Maidan. KMRC has imported head-hardened rails from Austria’s Voestalpine Schienen for laying the tracks, except for those at the Salt Lake depot.
It will take more than a year for the entire 16km stretch to be operational. For now, Metro Railway is chasing a 2021-end deadline to commission the corridor till Sealdah.