Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is adding 120 additional coaches to convert six coach metro trains into eight coach metro trains to de-congest metro.
120 new coaches will be added to Yellow Line (Line 2 connecting Huda City Centre and Samaypur Badli), Red Line (Line 1 connecting Rithala and Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda), and Blue Line (Line 3/4 connecting Dwarka Sector 21 and Noida Electronic City/Vaishali) of the Delhi Metro.
All metro trains running of the above-mentioned lines will be eight coach metro, addition of new coaches is expected to be complete by year end.
By this month end, all 12 of six-coach trains on yellow line will be upgraded to eight coach trains, taking no. of eight coach trains to 64, subsequently, 9 six coach trains and 39 six coach trains and Blue Line and Red Line, respectively will be upgraded to eight coach trains, DMRC Spokesperson said.
Of the 120 new coaches obtained, 40 coaches have been obtained from Bombardier and 80 coaches have been obtained from Bharat Earth Movers Ltd. (BEML), he said.
Currently, the Delhi Metro has a fleet of 336 trains, comprising 181 six-coach trains, 133 eight-coach trains and 22 four-coach trains across all its corridors. The first eight-coach train was introduced on the Blue line in December 2010.
Addition of new metro cars is carried out to increase passenger carrying capacity of the three major Delhi Metro lines, which accounts for 40 to 50 per cent of daily passenger utilisation.
DMRC spokesperson also said, only Yellow, Red and Blue lines can carry eight coach trains, as they are built on broad gauge, and other metro lines and Airport Express line of Delhi Metro are built on standard gauge, which can only carry maximum of six coach trains.