NCRTC completes joining viaducts on Delhi-Meerut RRTS corridor

The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) on Monday said that it has completed the construction of the entire viaduct for the Delhi-Meerut rapid rail route from Delhi’s New Ashok Nagar station to Meerut South in Uttar Pradesh.

The 17-km-long priority section of this route, between Sahibabad and Duhai, was operationalised for public on October 21 this year.

Delhi to Meerut is the full route of the phase-1 corridor that is expected to be operationalised by early 2025. Officials said that the laying of tracks will begin after completion of the viaduct.

“We recently finished connecting the entire stretch from Delhi to Meerut for the first RRTS corridor. The civil work of making the viaduct is now complete and laying of tracks has started,” said an NCRTC spokesperson, adding that last week a trial-run was started “to extend the route from the priority section to the entire stretch from Ghaziabad to Meerut till the Meerut South station”.

Officials said that the year has been very productive for this mass rapid transit system being developed for the maiden time in the country.

They said that 2023 began with the commencement of trial runs on the priority section. During these trial runs, various sub-systems of the RRTS, such as the rolling stock, ETCS-2 signalling on the network, ballastless track, and overhead equipment, were tested independently and later in synergy with each other to ensure their safe and compliant implementation and compatibility.

In June, the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) approved the operation of Namo Bharat train services on the priority section that became the first railway system in the country to be opened for operation on the entire section with a maximum operational speed of 160-km per hour, the officials added.

“The majority of civil construction work at Sarai Kale Khan RRTS station has been completed. Currently, finishing, electrical, and maintenance work is underway. Similarly, civil construction work is being carried out for the concourse and platform level at the New Ashok Nagar station,” said the NCRTC spokesperson.

The tunnelling work in the underground section of Delhi is complete, and, the concourse and platform levels at the Anand Vihar station have been constructed and are now undergoing flooring work, the spokesperson added.

Officials said that the tunnelling work for the entire Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor that was started in February was also completed successfully in August.

This corridor has a total of four underground stations at Anand Vihar in Delhi, and Meerut Central, Bhainsali, and Begumpul in Meerut.To construct these tunnels, more than 80,000 pre-cast segments have been used.

According to an NCRTC official, these high-precision pre-cast tunnel segments were cast at the state-of-the-art casting yards established at Karkardooma, New Delhi, and Shatabdi Nagar, Meerut. “The diameter of the RRTS tunnels is 6.5m which is highly optimised as compared to global benchmarks of tunnels for a similar design speed of 180 Kmph with wider and higher rolling stock.”

In 2023, the RRTS project also won several awards, including TAI Tunneling Awards 2023 and platinum ‘Project Award’ rating for the Ghaziabad Receiving Substation (RSS), and Sahibabad RRTS station at the Green Building Congress 2023.

The spokesperson said that the RRTS corridor’s construction began in 2019, and “commencing the operation of the priority section within just four years is a significant accomplishment”.

It is especially remarkable considering that it is an entirely new system with all the sub-systems and trains of the RRTS corridor having been developed in an entirely new manner, the spokesperson added.

Officials said that after commencement of operation of the priority section on the Delhi-Meerut-Ghaziabad RRTS corridor, the trial-run has also begun in the section ahead of it from Duhai to Modi Nagar South station.

In this process, the electric OHE (Over Head Equipment) has been charged with a capacity of 25 KV from Murad Nagar receiving substation to Modi Nagar South covering about 12-km distance, they added.

The 25km stretch, between Duhai and Meerut South RRTS station, is the next section of the RRTS corridor to be operationalized for the public after the priority section.

This section has a total of four stations, Murad Nagar, Modi Nagar North, Modi Nagar South, and Meerut South.

According to officials, in June, the construction of the viaduct up to Meerut South was completed with the installation of the last span. Since then, various construction works like track laying, OHE installation, signalling and telecom, and electrical have been progressing at pace in this section. At present, track laying work is almost complete, and other works are in their final stages.

In the elevated section of the Delhi segment, approximately seven kilometres of the nearly nine-km-long viaduct has been completed, said officials.

As part of this, the construction of a bridge over the Yamuna River has also been completed. Additionally, in the congested area of Kondli, a total of 360 metres of special steel spans were installed to cross the Gazipur Drain.