RailEnquiry

Kolkata: The long awaited East West corridor of Kolkata Metro Railway—an ambitious project to connect Howrah with rest of Kolkata through an underground tunnel beneath riverbed of Ganga—will be ready for trial run by next year.
Built at the cost of Rs 4,676 crore and executed by a joint venture company formed by the Centre and the State government, East West Metro, the first phase of the 14.58-km stretch would ready for operation by October next year.
Chief Executive Engineer of the East Metro Railway Project GC Mitra said, “We are hopeful that we can start a trial run for the first phase of the project by October 2013. The work for the project is going on at a good pace.”
The first phase of the 14.58-km-long track would have six stations. Among them, four stations - Sector V, Karunamoyee, Central Park and City Centre would be elevated. While three others, Salt Lake Stadium, Phool Bagan and Sealdah would be underground.
The initial deadline for the project was February 2011. The construction work of the underground tunnel was started in February 2012 and works on the tunnel has just been completed between Subhas Sarovor and Phool Bagan till now.
The East-west Metro officials are using tunnel-boring machines to bore tunnels for the corridor. This is for the first time that this mechanism is being used in this part of the country.
“Commuters never experienced a nightmarish experience because of the new mechanism. There was hardly any effect on the surface traffic movement despite the construction work being on in full swing,” a senior Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation official said.