CMRS Inspects Bangalore Metro’s Whitefield Extension

The Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety (CMRS) from the Indian Railways’ Southern Circle on Wednesday started its 3-day statutory final safety inspection of Bangalore Metro’s 15.257 km Reach 1A & Reach 1B (Baiyyappanahalli – Whitefield) extension of the Purple Line.

With ongoing civil work on the western-end (2.2 km Baiyyappanahalli – Tin Factory – KR Puram) which is nearing completion, the CMRS team’s scope includes the 13 km KR Puram – Whitefield section built by ITD Cementation India.

The first 2 days of the inspection involve assessing passenger amenities, control room facilities across all elevated stations, and a motor-trolley inspection of the line’s viaduct and systems (track by Texmaco, signaling & electrification by Alstom).

Wednesday’s schedule covered Reach 1B’s 7 new stations at Kundalahalli, Nallurhalli (formerly Vydehi Hospital), Sadaramangla (formerly Satya Sai Hospital), Pattandur Agrahara (formerly ITPL), Kadugodi, Channasandra (formerly Ujjval Vidyalaya) and Whitefield.

Thursday’s schedule will cover Reach 1A stations between Sitharama Palya – KR Puram. On the final day, BMRCL will conduct speed trials where the line’s BEML trains are expected to clock high speeds of 90 kmph.

Approvals from the CMRS are always conditional in nature. I expect the CMRS team will submit its report by early next week, so we’ll have to wait and see what conditions are laid out for Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) to begin operations. That’ll be followed by rectification and a compliance report back to the CMRS.

@WF_Watcher on Twitter posts regular updates, so check out his page for images of all stations, viaduct and Kadugodi Depot. System installation work is still underway at the depot, due to which at least 3 trains have been temporarily parked on the depot’s ramps.

There’s minor finishing work pending across a few stations (eg. Kadugodi, Channasandra), but that shouldn’t be a deal-breaker. At the most, the CMRS will note that as an item to remedy for passenger safety.

Commercial operations between KR Puram – Whitefield are expected to start in the 2nd half of March with BMRCL using 7 trains at reportedly 10 minute frequencies.

When that happens, Bangalore Metro’s Purple Line will become 38.60 km long connecting Kengeri – Whitefield in 2 temporarily disjointed sections. The entire network will become 68.6 km large surpassing Hyderabad Metro’s 67 km network to once again become the 2nd largest in the country (see list).

For more updates, check out the Bangalore section or my Home Page! Sign up for free instant email notifications on new posts over here. Like this post? Get early-access to updates and support the site over here.

– TMRG