A long-cherished dream of denizens of the twin cities is slated to come true in four days with the Hyderabad Metro Rail authorities planning to throw open the service to public travel from Tuesday evening after the inaugural ceremony in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and others will participate.
Senior metro rail officials, not willing to be identified, indicated that steps were being put in place for running commercial operations on the 30-km Nagole-Ameerpet-Miyapur stretch traversing two Corridors of Corridor 1 - Miyapur to L.B. Nagar and Nagole to Hi-Tec City/Raidurg.
Ameerpet interchange station will be functional even if it will not be completed in all respects where passengers coming from Nagole will have to climb up a platform to catch another train to reach Miyapur. Similarly, riders from Miyapur wanting to go to Nagole will have to get down to another platform.
While the inaugural day may have commercial operations for a few hours after the official ceremony, metro officials are sure of regular operations beginning from dawn (5 a.m.- 6 a.m.) to night 10 p.m.-11 p.m. from Wednesday (Nov.29).
“There will be no free or joy rides. While we understand and expect a lot of enthusiastic crowds for the first few days, there will be restricted entry for ticket buyers alone and this can done through pre-paid cards or daily ticket tokens which will be made available at all the 24 stations en route,” they say. For now, metro trains on twin tracks overhead will have a 15-minute frequency (a train for every 15 minutes) for six months with restricted speed limits and it is likely to continue for some time with three cars with a carrying capacity of 1,000 passengers. Gradually, it will be increased to six car trains with a carrying capacity of 2,000 passengers.
Owing to statutory regulations and slow speeds up to 40 kmph with a station every kilometre or so, it could take 45 minutes each from Nagole to Ameerpet (17 km) and another 45 minutes from Ameerpet to Miyapur (13 km) for some time before the frequency is increased to a train every five minutes and speeds too increased, they added.
