(Pics) Kolkata Metro’s Phoolbagan Extension of Line-2 Inaugurated
Over an hour ago, India’s Minister of Railways virtually inaugurated a 1.7 km mostly underground extension of Kolkata Metro’s 16.34 km East-West Line-2 from Salt Lake Stadium to Phoolbagan Station.
The roughly 1.1 km first underground portion this line, connecting Subas Sarovar Ramp with Phoolbagan Station, has opened up 25 years after the last underground section of city’s Line-1, connecting Central with Girish Park, opened in September 1995.
The Salt Lake Stadium Station to Ramp section’s viaduct was built by Gammon India, while the Ramp to Phoolbagan Station’s underground section was built by ITD Cementation India which recorded breakthroughs in May and July 2012 using two Herrenknecht tunnel boring machines (S615 and S616). The line is equipped with Hitachi STS’s signaling and train-control solution, and its standard gauge rolling stock has been provided by BEML which flagged off the last of 14 6-coach train-sets from Bangalore in June.
The line was inspected and approved for commercial operations in June by the Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety (CMRS) all the way until Sealdah Crossover, which is further west of Phoolbagan Station – view images here.
More nice older images of Phoolbagan Station can be viewed here and here.
With today’s development, Kolkata Metro’s east-west Line-2 is now 7 km long with 7 stations. Its first (and last) 5.3 km section connecting Sector V with Salt Lake Stadium through 6 stations was inaugurated back in February. Commercial operations on the entire line (Phoolbagan – Sector V) will begin tomorrow morning with an end-to-end ride costing 20 rupees.
For more updates, check out the Kolkata section of The Metro Rail Guy!
– TMRG
