Five kilometres, five stations, nine trains, 153 pillars and a running time of 10 minutes. That in a nutshell summarise the second city extension of Kochi metro between Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Maharaja’s College Ground.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the commercial services on the stretch at a function to be held at Ernakulam Town Hall on Tuesday at 11 a.m. Union Minister of State for Urban Development Hardeep Singh Puri will preside.
Prior to the inaugural function, Mr. Vijayan will flag off the metro train from the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium station. Then the Chief Minister along with the Union Minister will take the metro ride upto the Maharaja’s College station. The commercial services along the new route will witness metro trains stop at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kaloor, Lissie and M.G. Road stations before winding up the five-kilometre long service at the Maharaja’s College Ground station.
The longest distance between two stations will be 1.20 kilometres between Lissie and M.G. Road followed by 1.17 kilometres between M.G. Road and Maharaja’s College Ground, 1.03 kilometres between stadium and Kaloor and 0.473 kilometres between Kaloor and Lissie. The service between the stadium station and Maharaja’s College Ground will be operated using nine trains while two will be put on standby to be deployed for emergencies.
There are 153 pillars on the stretch between Palarivattom and Maharaja’s College Ground with the tallest being the one over North Overbridge.
Stations
Like other metro stations between Aluva and Palarivattom, station designs follow a thematic pattern.
The addition of five stations on the new stretch takes the total number of stations between Aluva and Maharaja’s College Ground to 16. Stadium and M.G. Road stations are among the six out of the 22 metro stations selected as theme-based stations, the others being the stations at Aluva, Cusat, Edappally and Changampuzha Park. The rest of the stations follow the visually appealing theme of Western Ghats.
Unsurprisingly, the stadium station has been designed based on the sports history of Kerala. The achievements of the State in the fields of cricket, football, and athletics in addition to Kalaripayattu find refection on the pillars of the station.
At Kaloor stadium, it is all about the mesmerising beauty of rain in the backdrop of Western Ghats complete with the images of waterfalls and rivers while butterflies are what stand out in the design of Lissie station. The theme station at M.G. Road has been designed reflecting the history of the district while the station at Maharaja’s College Ground has been designed around the flora and fauna of Western Ghats.
