INDIA: Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu unveiled the first car for the Kochi metro at Alstom’s Sri City plant in Andhra Pradesh on January 2.
Alstom is supplying an initial fleet of 25 three-car Metropolis trainsets to Kochi Metro Rail under an €85m contract awarded in October 2014. The order includes options for up to 25 additional trainsets.
Alstom’s Design & Styling department at Saint-Ouen in France collaborated on the design with KMRL and Tata Elxsi, which devised the livery. The car sides are stainless steel, with aluminium and composite panels, and the fronts feature LED lights in the shape of elephant tusks.
Each walk-through trainset will be 65 m long with four doors per car side. The 975-passenger capacity includes 136 composite seats in a longitudinal arrangement, as well as cushioned priority seats and wheelchair spaces.
The air-conditioned trainsets have a maximum speed of 80 km/h. Faiveley Transport is supplying components including brakes, couplers, doors and HVAC under contracts worth more than €10m.
Alstom is also supplying electrification, signalling and telecoms for the 1 435 mm gauge metro line under separate contracts. The €34m signalling and telecoms contract includes Urbalis 400 CBTC signalling; the €33m electrification contract covers the installation of a 750 V DC third-rail power supply.
The 25·6 km elevated route between Aluva and Petta with 22 stations is scheduled to open for passenger service in March 2016. It is expected to carry 15 000 passengers/h per direction.
