Bottleneck Remains on Pink Line; Trilokpuri-IP Extension Section to Be Single Route

New Delhi, Oct 29 (PTI) Due to infrastructure constraints, trains on the Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake-IP Extension section of a soon-to-open corridor of Delhi Metro's Pink Line will ply on single route with a frequency of a little over 15 minutes, officials said Monday.

The Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake-Shiv Vihar segment is slated to be inaugurated on Wednesday.

"Due to constraints at Trilokpuri area, the section from there till IP Extension will enable plying of trains on a single line only till we resolve the issue. The trains will run at a frequency of 15 minutes and 36 seconds," Executive Director, Corporate Communications at DMRC, Anuj Dayal told reporters.

A bottleneck near Triloklouri station has arisen due to multiple issues, including land acquisition, resulting in a portion of metro segment, about few kilometres remaining incomplete, rendering the Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake station, a terminus.

"Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake station is not planned as a terminal or interlocking station which generally have crossovers for trains to change the tracks. Therefore, in the absence of a crossover for trains to turn back after terminating at this station, they can only be run on single line to provide the service in this section," he said.

There are two stations on the Trilokpuri-Sanjay Lake and IP Extension section -- East Vinod Nagar-Mayur Vihar- II and Mandawali-West Vinod Nagar.

Also, only every third train will go to Trilokpuri station from IP Extension due to the single line operation on down line due to non-availability of cross-over facility at Trilokpuri, he said.

"Passengers may find it a bit uneasy in the beginning, but soon they will get the hang of the system," he said.

The train services between IP Extension and Shiv Vihar section will be run as per normal practice on both the lines at a peak hour frequency of 5 minutes and 12 seconds, officials said.

"However, passengers heading towards Trilokpuri or Shiv Vihar will be required to change the trains at the platform level itself at Maujpur-Babarpur station. This interchange is necessitated since Maujpur-Babarpur is designed to meet Phase-IV requirement as an interchange station with four platforms," Dayal said.

Therefore, there are two sets of platforms. One for the section of Pink Line which is starting from Majlis Park and terminating at Maujpur-Babarpur station (platforms 1 and 2) and then proposed to be further extended under Phase-IV till Majlis Park to complete the entire ring of Pink Line, he said.

"The other set of platform (platforms 3 and 4) will cater to services between Maujpur-Shiv Vihar section which will work as a stand alone section of Pink Line with trains running as a loop service in this short section comprising two intermediate stations at Gokulpuri and Johri Enclave," he added.

This interchange at Maujpur station will, however, be seamless as passengers can directly change the trains from platform level itself. The trains from Trilokpuri and Shiv Vihar will terminate at platform 2 and platform 3 respectively at Maujpur Metro station, which are at the same level (island platform) facing each other, the DMRC said.

The services between Trilokpuri-Sanjay Lake to Shiv Vihar section will commence at 6:15 am from Trilokpuri and at 6:00 am from IP Extension and Shiv Vihar from Monday to Saturday. The same will commence from 8:15 am from Trilokpuri and at 8:00 am from IP Extension and Shiv Vihar on Sundays.

The beginning of operations on this section will lead to reduction of fares on multiple routes in the network. For example, for commuters travelling from Dilshad Garden to Anand Vihar, commuters will save time, distance and money --from Rs 50 at present via interchange route to Rs 30 through new line.

Similarly, there will be reduction in fares to many of these stations from Shahdara and Welcome as well, officials said.

The all-elevated Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake-Shiv Vihar section in east Delhi consists of 15 stations, three of which are interchange facilities.

The stations are Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake, East Vinod Nagar-Mayur Vihar-II , Mandawali-West Vinod Nagar, IP Extension, Anand Vihar ISBT, Karkardooma, Karkardooma Court, Krishna Nagar, East Azad Nagar, Welcome, Jaffrabad, Maujpur-Babarpur, Gokulpuri, Johri Enclave and Shiv Vihar.

The main highlight of this section will be the presence of three interchange stations -- Anand Vihar (with Blue Line), Karkardooma (with Blue Line) and Welcome (with Red Line).

The Shiv Vihar-Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake stretch is part of the 59 km-long Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar corridor (Pink Line) which falls under the Phase-III network of the DMRC.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)