Delhi-Meerut Rapid Rail To Have Indigenous Ballastless Track Technology

The country’s first regional rapid rail coming up in the national capital region (NCR), being implemented on the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut route will have a modern and indigenous track, according to the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC). The 82 km long Delhi-Meerut rapid rail corridor, which aims to reduce the travel time between Delhi and Meerut to just 55 minutes, will consist of a unique and indigenous ballastless track, suitable for supporting a high design speed of 180 km per hour. RRTS has a design speed of 180 km per hour and an operational speed of 160 km per hour. According to NCRTC, so far, a ballastless track that is capable of supporting such high operational speed is not available across the country.

The rapid rail’s ballastless tracks will reduce the life-cycle cost as it will support high-performance and will require low maintenance. This production and execution of indigenous track is also in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat policy. Recently, the construction of the track slab factory for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut rapid rail corridor has started at the Shatabdi Nagar casting yard and will be completed within a period of 180 days. The priority section of the Delhi-Meerut rapid rail is the 17 km-long Sahibabad-Duhai corridor, which is targeted to be operational by 2023. The factory will start the production of track slabs to meet the target of operationalizing the Sahibabad-Duhai priority section within the decided time period.

Meanwhile, the National Capital Region Transport Corporation, responsible for implementing the RRTS project, signed a memorandum of understanding with Bharat Electronics Limited for the development of indigenous platform screen doors to be installed in the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut rapid rail train sets. The indigenous platform screen doors equipped on the stations will act as a safety barrier between passengers on the platform and the train or track, given the high-speed train movement at rapid frequencies. The doors will not only help in efficient crowd management at the platform but will also prevent accidents such as jumping or falling on the track. So far, all the platform screen doors used for urban transport systems across the country, such as bus rapid transit, metro rail, etc were imported.