At the end of this month, people will witness the test trial of the much awaited metro rail over the viaduct.
Officials concerned said that at the beginning they would run the metro rail slowly over the viaduct. Later, they will increase the speed of the metro rail to 110 kilometer per hour.
As it is the trial of Metrorail conducting by the officials concerned, at present no passenger will be allowed to board the train.
MAN Siddique, Managing Director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL), said, Metrorail would run above the viaduct this month.
“The trial run will be conducted very carefully. Then it will run at a speed of 110kmph. After that the trial run with passengers will be started gradually. We will follow the same path as other countries in the world do,” MAN Siddique added. According to the project progress report, despite repeated pandemic push, construction work is moving fast towards the goal. The infrastructure work of the first nine stations is almost complete. Sheds installation of the first five has already been completed. Three of them have escalator facilities. At the end of July, the overall progress was 70 percent.
The set of third and fourth coaches set was taken to Diabari depot from jetty on Friday. With these, four out of 24 sets of trains are now available in the country. Thus 20 more sets will come from Japan. 19 types of tests will be conducted for each coach including mechanical-electrical, washing.
After that these coaches will be set up on rail track. This work may take one and a half to two months. In all, the total cost of 24 sets of trains has been estimated at Tk 4,257.34 crore.
It was learnt that, the authorities concerned have also planned to operate Metrorail to Motijheel from Uttara very soon. This may take time till June, 2023. The project is scheduled to be completed by June, 2024.
The line from Uttara to Motijheel is known as Line-6 which is 20.10 kilometers long. There are 16 stations. This line has two sections. One is from Uttara to Agargaon and another is from Agargaon to Motijheel.
The metro rail is projected to carry some 60,000 passengers per hour by traveling the entire route of 21.26 km from Uttara to Motijheel-Kamalapur Railway Station in just less than 40 minutes.
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