L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH) has announced that trial runs between Begumpet to S.R. Nagar via the Ameerpet interchange station are now ready to commence with the Government of India’s Chief Electrical Inspector D.V.S. Raju according sanction for energisation of Overhead Electric Traction System (OETS).

Earlier on Monday, Mr. Raju conducted the statutory inspection of the overhead power systems where electricity is drawn from the 132/25Kv receiving station at the Uppal depot. The incoming supply to this is from the 220/132Kv main substation of TS Transco.

“Energising the traction system will help in commissioning the entire 30 km stretch from Nagole to Miyapur. This will also enable testing of other systems of metro rail,” he said. Trains can now be run from Nagole to Ameerpet to SR Nagar and also from Ameerpet to Miyapur with interchange station at Ameerpet.

Trail runs were completed and safety certification obtained for Nagole to Begumpet and Miypur to S.R. Nagar. Ameerpet station has also got power supply connection last week and it has led to the illumination and functioning of lifts and escalators at the interchange station.

L&TMRH MD and CEO Shivanand Nimbargi has informed that all the statutory requirements will be completed by November 20 to make the system ready for commissioning and inauguration while pointing out that the tests will conclude with the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) inspections and clearances.

He, along with Anil Kumar Saini, Head, Railway systems of L&TMRH were with Mr. Raju during his inspection along with officials from the Independent Engineer Louie Berger and HMR.

The differentiators

Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) will certainly stand out when compared to the other metro projects commissioned or under construction in other cities across the country because it has been laying much emphasis on the facilities down below the stations for convenience of the commuters and pedestrians, affirmed MD N.V.S. Reddy on Monday.

“We are concentrating on improving the road and street infrastructure under the stations so that the contrast of ‘palaces’ built overhead is not too much. We are working on signages, putting railings for the entire station stretch to prevent spillover onto the main thoroughfare, service roads, earmarking of parking space based on vehicles priority starting with public transport buses, electric vehicles, etc.,” he informed.

Mr. Reddy was speaking at the ongoing Urban Mobility conference in the presence of transportation experts and other metro rail MDs when doubts were expressed about how the prevailing traffic chaos on the roads can be contained once the metro becomes operational.

Street furniture and pedestrian circulation areas near some stations where there was sufficient spaces for citizens to move around and relax were also some of the unique features of the project here. Footpaths of widths ranging from 15 ft to 50 ft are being provided at different stretches on both sides of the road, he added.

Just having an elevated metro rail project will prove of no help in improving urban mobility in Hyderabad, unless the government develops widespread rail connectivity across the city along with Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS), said Pedro Ortiz, renowned urban planning expert and senior urban consultant with World Bank.

Ortiz was speaking at a plenary session on ‘Smart City and Urban Mobility’ at the tenth Urban Mobility India conference being conducted along with CODATU-17 conference in Hyderabad. At the session, he said that the existing network of railways in Hyderabad (refering to the network of MMTS), is very basic which does not work for a metropolis like Hyderabad.

Ortiz said, “Hyderabad has a commuter train system but you are not using entire potential of the commuter train. It just goes through center(of the city), from one side to the other. There are many more things to do in Hyderabad to integrate the metropolitan transport system as a whole. You are building Hyderabad metro, that is great but when I superimpose the two elements (metro and commuter rail system), I don’t see an interconnection, an intermodality between train and the metro. The metro stations do not go into train stations. You have to get down of the train and get the metro.”

Ortiz further said that commuter railway network plays an extremely strategic role in a metro like Hyderabad and gave examples of metros like London and Stockholm which have a widespread and efficient network of railways, necessary for people to travel large distances in a metro.

It may be mentioned here that the MMTS network in Hyderabad has a length of just 47 kilometers and is inefficient with trains running late most of the times with less frequency.

Ortiz also stressed on the importance of developing bus feeder services for the metro rail simultaneously with construction of metro rail infrastructure and not after the metro is constructed.

However, the current situation is such that there are not enough number of buses with good frequency even on most of the regularly used routes in the city. He said that all the modes of transport need to be developed simultaneously and that these transport systems will not prove helpful unless they are efficiently integrated.

The statutory inspection of the pending 1.5 km stretch of railway line near Srirangapatna – taken up as part of track doubling work between Mysuru and Bengaluru – was completed by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) on Monday.

Though originally scheduled to be held on Saturday, the authorities conducted a spot visit besides the track inspection, complete with speed trials and inspection of the two new railway bridges, across the Cauvery, on Monday.

Sources said the CRS inspection covered all technical issues besides observation of the curvature, points and crossings and no major lacunae have been found. All things being satisfactory, the authorisation for operationalising the track may be issued within a week.

The inspection team comprised Manoharan, (CRS) Southern Region; Ashok Gupta, Chief Administrative Officer (Construction), South Western Railways; A.K. Garg, Chief Bridge Engineer, SWR, Hubballi; S.K. Jain, Chief Engineer, (Construction); and R.S. Saxena, DRM, Bengaluru Division. Consequent to the CRS approval for operationalising the track, the running time between Naganahalli and Pandavpura is expected to further reduce by about 7 to 10 minutes.

The CRS inspection also draws the track doubling work between Mysuru and Bengaluru to a close. While the Bengaluru-Ramanagaram section had been doubled earlier, the Ramanagaram-Mysuru section received administrative clearance in 2007 and the authorities took more than 11 years to complete the doubling work on the 93 km stretch.

Though doubling work along the entire section was completed in 2014, work on the 1.5 km stretch was pending owing to the 18th Century armoury belonging to the era of Tipu Sultan which was located along the alignment of the new track, causing the work to be stalled.

Following permission from the Archaeological Survey of India, the monument was translocated in one piece with expertise from the U.S. in March this year, paving the way for completion of the second track as well.

A high-level Chinese team arrived in Kathmandu on Monday for talks with Nepalese authorities on the possibility of extending proposed cross-border railway links, part of efforts to expand connectivity with Nepal.

A Chinese firm has conducted a feasibility study for cross-border railway lines that will link Kerung or Gyirong in the Tibet Autonomous Region to Kathmandu, Pokhara and Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha near the border with India.

China’s efforts to build railway links to Nepal are part of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a flagship project being pushed by President Xi Jinping.

“After holding talks, the Nepali and Chinese teams will leave for a field visit to the border near Keyrung on Tuesday,” said a Nepalese official who participated in the talks.

A vice minister from China’s National Railway Administration is leading the 23-member Chinese delegation.

Transport infrastructure at Kerung was recently upgraded by the Chinese in order to make inroads into South Asia through Nepal under the BRI.

The feasibility study carried out by the Chinese firm in 2016, which was accessed by Hindustan Times, states that three railway lines will be built between China and Nepal. The total investment is estimated to be around $4 billion.

A German national, who was involved in an altercation with a railway employee at Robertsganj Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh Sonbhadra district, has been arrested for allegedly travelling on a forged visa, the police said today.

Holger Erik Misch, a resident of Berlin, had on November 3 entered into an altercation with railway employee Aman Kumar and had also allegedly attacked two policemen with a stick, they said.
“The German national has been arrested. First of all he did not have a tourist visa and secondly he was carrying a forged visa,” Superintendent of Police, Sonbhadra, RP Singh told news agency PTI over the phone.

An FIR has been registered against him under 14A Foreigners Act (for entry in restricted areas without valid documents), 419 IPC (cheating by personation) and IPC 420 (fraud), he said.

The railway employee alleged that when he greeted Erik by saying “welcome to India”, the German hit him, though Erik made a counter allegation that he was beaten up by Aman.

Circle Officer, GRP, Monika Chadha told news agency PTI that non cognisable reports (NCR) were registered on the complaint from both the sides.

Erik, who was taken to GRP police station in Mirzapur on November 3, had also attacked two policemen with a stick and tried to flee.

“Sub-inspectors Harikesh Ram Azad and Mithilesh Yadav were beaten with a stick by Erik when he got off the police vehicle. Since he is a foreign tourist, he is our guest and that is why we decided not to file a case in this regard against Erik,” Inspector, GRP, Mirzapur Samar Bahadur Singh told news agency PTI.

Police said that earlier an FIR was lodged against the German national on July 5 in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, for allegedly attacking a person with a sharp edged weapon.

“His passport and visa are deposited in the Chief Judical Magistrate court in Kullu,” the police said, quoting Erik.

Uttar Pradesh was in the news recently when on October 22, two tourists from Switzerland, Quentin Jeremy Clerc (24) and Marie Droz (24), were chased and attacked with stones and sticks by a group of five youths in Fatehpur Sikri, Agra triggering widespread outrage.

Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Sulkhan Singh has issued a list of guidelines to prevent misbehaviour with foreign tourists.

The Indian Railways is mulling a mobile app that will predict if waitlisted train tickets have any chance of getting confirmed, officials said on Sunday. Railway Ministry spokesperson Anil Saxena told news agency IANS (Indo-Asian News Service): “The railways is working on an application that will predict if the waitlisted ticket can be confirmed or not.” Mr Saxena said that the prediction will be based on the passenger operations and booking pattern data of the last 13 years.

He further said the CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems) is developing the complex application for the railways where a user will be informed about the chances of the waitlisted ticket getting confirmed at the time of booking the ticket on the railways new user-friendly website and application.

According to the railways, about 13 lakh tickets are booked every day against a reserved accommodation of 10.5 lakh berths across all classes.

railway official said that the idea of predicting chances of waitlisted tickets getting confirmed was of Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.

Railways has launched the main arch of the world’s highest bridge on the River Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district which will provide direct connectivity to the Kashmir valley.

The iconic bridge will soar 359 metres above the bed of the River Chenab and will be 30 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

The bridge forms the crucial link in the 111-km stretch between Katra and Banihal which is part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla section of the Kashmir Railway project

“We have begun the work on installations of main arch between two sides of the bridge. We have launched the main-arch”, MK Gupta, Member Engineering, Railway Board told reporters Kauri, Reasi district yesterday.

“The iconic bridge is being constructed on River Chenab on the Katra-Banihal section as part of the flagship Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) Project,” Mr Gupta said.

The launch of the main arch is a noteworthy endeavour as it entails carrying heavy segments from two ends of the bridge – Kauri end and Bakkal end – and involves the world longest cable crane arrangement.

The 1.3-km-long bridge is being constructed at a cost of Rs. 1,250 crore. “It is part of a big project. The work is being done by AFCONS through Konkan railways. We will complete it by May 2019”, Mr Gupta said.

“The work has been launched simultaneously from both the sides. The design of the bridge has been made to sustain earthquake of magnitude 8 on the Richter scale”, he said.

National and international consultants have been engaged during various stages of the project. Detailed geo-physical studies, seismic studies and slope stability studies have been included.

The erection of the bridge is a project in itself. To achieve these pylons were erected on either side of the river, and two auxiliary self-propelled cable cranes were used to tow temporary auxiliary ropes across these pylons, they said.

“The ropes were used to support the partly finished arch parts. Both the embankments of Chenab facing downstream have hard cherty dolomite and quartzite forming steep cliffs”, a top engineer said.

The launch is typically performed in a series of increments so that additional sections can be added to the rear of the superstructure unit prior to subsequent launches, he said.

Mr Gupta said that three massive workshops for undertaking fabrication of steel structure has been commissioned at Srinagar end of bridge and one at Katra end of the bridge.

“For launching purpose, arrangements in the form of pylons with cable cranes spanning the entire gorge have been completed successfully. The cable crane assembly including pylons at span of 915 meters is the longest in the world. For the first time a Railways viaduct was launched on curve of 2.74 degree”, he said.

The officials said that more than 1,300 workers and 300 engineers have been working round-the-clock to complete the bridge by May 2019.

The construction started in 2004, but the work was stopped in 2008-09 on the aspect of safety of rail passengers due to frequent high velocity winds in the area.

The officials said that it was finally decided to stop train operations when the wind velocity touches 90 kmh with the help of the automatic signalling system and anemometer (instrument to measure the velocity of winds).

He said the bridge under construction can withstand winds up to 260 kmph and its lifespan will be 120 years.

On the other side of the Chenab river, the Railways is constructing three big tunnels of various lengths T2 (5.9 KM), T3 (9.37 km) and T14 (13 km).

Railway projects account for over 60% of the 331 central sector projects that are facing cost overrun of Rs 1.5 lakh crore due to various reasons.

A total 202 projects of railways are facing total cost overrun of Rs 1.5 lakh crore, as per the flash report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for July, 2017.

The statistics ministry monitors central sector projects envisaging an expenditure of Rs 150 crore and above each on regular basis.

According to the report, the total original cost of these 202 projects was Rs 1,05,424.13 crore. The total anticipated cost of these projects is estimated at Rs 2,55,634.29 crore which indicates overall cost escalation by 142.48%.

The ministry monitored 350 projects of Indian Railways in July this year.

The study stated that as many as 33 projects of Railways out of the monitored 350 projects reported time overrun or delay of 12 months to 261 months.

After railways, power sector reported second highest incidence of overall cost overrun. Out of the 125 projects monitored by Statistics Ministry in the power sector, 43 reported cost overrun of Rs 52,933.93 crore.

The total original cost of these 43 projects was Rs 89,432.27 crore which escalated to total anticipated cost of Rs 1,42,366.20 crore.

The report stated that out of the 125 power sector projects, 59 reported time overrun (delay) of 5 months to 134 months

To weed out the culture of coming late, the railway ministry will soon install Aadhaar-based biometric attendance system across its zones and divisions by January 31 next year. The railway board issued a letter in this regard to all zones on November 3.

According to the order, the biometric attendance system would be first implemented in the offices of all divisions, zones, Metro Rail Kolkata, railways workshop, factories and production units by November 30. “The plan is to put a check on the officials arriving late or not coming to work at all,” a senior rail official told PTI.

“Once the Aadhaar-based biometric attendance system is installed across the railway zones and divisions by January 31, 2018, this problem can be addressed,” the official added.

In the second phase, it will be implemented in all the offices of Railways, including public undertakings, attached and subordinate offices by January 31, 2018.

Currently, the system is already in place in the railway board and few zonal headquarters. The letter from the board also states the biometric system should be integrated and implemented in such a way that it can be monitored by the divisional railway manager’s office.

It has also instructed that CCTV cameras be provided with the biometric machine.

Meanwhile, from November 1, railways had started following a new time table to reduce halt timings of around 500 long-distance trains.

According to the new timetable, now the running time of popular trains will reduce by 15 minutes to two hours from tomorrow. Coupled with track and infrastructure upgrade, automatic signalling and the new Linke-Hofmann-Busch coaches that allow a 130 kmph top speed, trains are expected to run faster.

Following directions from railway minister Piyush Goyal earlier this month, the national carrier incorporated “innovative timetabling” under which running time of popular trains will reduce by 15 minutes to two hours.

The new timetable will also provide each railway division two to four hours for maintenance works.

Cracking the whip on latecomers, the railway ministry has said it will install Aadhaar-based biometric attendance system across its zones and divisions by January 31 next year.

The railway board issued a letter in this regard to all zones on November 3. According to the order, the biometric attendance system would be first implemented in the offices of all divisions, zones, Metro Rail Kolkata, railways workshop, factories and production units by November 30.

In the second phase, it will be implemented in all the offices of Railways, including public undertakings, attached and subordinate offices by January 31, 2018.

Currently, the system is already in place in the railway board and few zonal headquarters.

The letter from the board also states the biometric system should be integrated and implemented in such a way that it can be monitored by the divisional railway manager’s office.

The Railway Ministry has planned to install Aadhar-based biometric attendance system in all its zones and divisions by January 31, 2018, an official said on Sunday.

The railway official told IANS: “The Railway Board has came up with a plan to put a check on the officials arriving late or not coming to work.

“The plan is to install Aadhar biometric attendance systaem across all the railway zones and divisions by January 31, 2018.”

As per the order, the biometric attendance system would be first implemented in the offices of all divisions, zones, RDSO, Metro Rail Kolkata, railways workshop, factories and productions units by November 30.

While in the second phase, the system needs to be implemented in all the offices of Railways, including public undertakings, attached and subordinate offices by January 31, 2018.

Currently the system is available in the railway board and few zonal headquarters.