The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has built Asia's highest automatic train washing plant at the Sultanpur depot here on the under-construction Central Secretariat-Gurgaon corridor.
Constructed at a cost of Rs.45 crore, it will serve as a maintenance depot for the metro corridor. The project began in July 2008 and is now almost ready for use.
A Delhi Metro statement said because of the limited area availability of 58,423 square metres, the plant had to be uniquely designed to suit the requirements of other facilities in the remaining space. So the washing plant had been strategically built on a ramp at a height of 6.7 metres from the ground level. No other metro system in Asia has built a washing plant at such height, it claimed. The plants in other depots of the Delhi Metro are situated at the ground level.
The washing plant is designed to carry out automatic washing of the external body of the trains. The water used in the process will be re-circulated in the system after cleaning the train. It will take just about four to five minutes for complete washing of a metro train.
In addition, the Sultanpur depot has 14 stabling lines that can accommodate 28 trains (four-coach each) at a time. Other facilities include a test track, two train inspection bay lines, two shunting necks, a filtration plant with pump-house and bore-well and an electric sub-station to meet the power needs.
The depot has also been provided with four mobile guided work lift platforms that have been built to raise the height of the platform up to 2.5 metres as per the needs to wash the roof of the metro coaches.
