By adding 120 additional coaches, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is undertaking the conversion of its remaining fleet of six-coach metro trains into eight-coach metro trains on the Yellow Line (Line 2 connecting Huda City Centre and Samaypur Badli), Red Line (Line 1 connecting Rithala and Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda), and Blue Line (Line 3/4 connecting Dwarka Sector 21 and Noida Electronic City/Vaishali) of the Delhi Metro network. It is expected that the conversion of six-coach trains into eight-coach trains will be completed by this year-end after which all the metro trains running on these Delhi Metro Lines will be of eight coaches only.
By this month-end, the process of converting all 12 six-coach metro trains into eight-coach metro trains on Delhi Metro’s Yellow Line will be completed thereby taking the total number of eight-coach metro trains on this line to 64. Subsequently, the rest of the nine six-coach metro trains on Blue Line as well as 39 six-coach metro trains on Red Line will be converted into eight-coach trains by this year-end taking the total number of eight-coach metro trains on these two Lines to 74 and 39 respectively. According to DMRC, 40 out of these 120 Delhi Metro coaches have been procured from Bombardier, while 80 coaches have been procured from Bharat Earth Movers Limited.
This is being done to increase the passenger-carrying capacity of the three main Delhi Metro corridors, which daily contribute to around 40 per cent to 50 per cent of passenger utilization. DMRC said that these Lines which were initially made operational under Phase 1 were developed on Broad Gauge having provision of running metro trains up to eight-coach formation. The remaining Lines from Number 5 to Number 9 as well as Airport Express Line which were subsequently taken up in Phase 2 and Phase 3 are all built on Standard Gauge with provision of running metro trains only up to six-coach formation.