Half past midnight on Thursday after a special pooja, the Metro train grandly exited the Chennai Port Trust for Koyambedu depot.
Four special modular hydraulic axles, each measuring nearly 100 feet, held the four coaches at ease and toured the city’s roads at just 4-5 km/hr.
They travelled past several landmarks, including Chennai Central station, Ripon Buildings and Anna Arch before reaching the depot.
“Several residents, autorickshaw and taxi drivers cheered and took photographs of the train at Anna Arch and Aminijikarai,” said an official of Namakkal Transport Carrier Logistics, which was awarded the contract to ship the nine train sets from the Alstom unit in Sao Paulo in Brazil. But it was not an entirely smooth ride for the four vehicles carrying the coaches; they halted at two major points – near Muthusamy and Koyambedu bridges – owing to traffic congestion. In the next four months, this train will be put through various tests for the trial run in December between Koyambedu and St. Thomas Mount.
