Spanning a total distance of 16.45 Kms covering the North-South axis the Kolkata Metro Railway is India's first and Asia's fifth underground railway system.
Though the idea was conceived in 1949 by the then Chief Minister of West Bengal
Dr. B. C. Roy and the Central Government sanction came through in 1972 it wasn't until a good
23 years later that the project was completed. Built in phases, services for the entire stretch from Dum Dum to Tollygunge was started in September 27, 1995. I remember being absolutely enthralled whenever we took the short ride from Esplanade to Maidan to get to
Victoria Memorial when out on
family outings.
The metro is the most efficient and quickest way to get around the city of
Kolkata with a total of 17 stations placed strategically across the city each about a
kilometer apart. Not to mention dirt-cheap - a one-way ride from
Tollygunge to
Dum Dum costs 8 Rs(about 20cents in USD). At every station the route is split up into a maximum of three possible zones (Zone I, II, III). The tickets are priced based on the destination at a rate of Rs.4, 6, 8 for the respective zones.
Multi Ride tickets are also available for daily commuters with special discount schemes. The interval between two trains fluctuates depending on the time of the day going to a low of 8 mins during rush-hour and between 10-15 minutes at other times.
Each train has 8 coaches attached to it with the official site claiming a seating capacity of 48 and standing room for 278 people per coach(1). As mentioned by Oolong in his post above each coach has a sort of bench running alongside it for seating purposes. The following is a rough layout of each coach :
--. .--00------00------00-------00--. .--
xx| |xx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xx| |xx
| | (W) | |
=== ===
| | (W) | |
xx| |xx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xx| |xx
--. .--00------00------00-------00--. .--
Legend :
00 - Sliding doors
x - Passenger seat (for 1)
= - Coach connector
(W) - Reserved for women
The environment on the platforms and in the trains is controlled by "forced ventilation with
washed and cooled air". This basically means that if you stick close enough to a pillar on the stations you have a remote chance of getting all that sticky sweat off your skin which
Kolkata with its ginormous humidity levels is infamous for. Once in the metro, open windows and humongous fans in the ceiling ensure that the compartment never gets too
stuffy.
The entire system is run on electricity with a 750 Volts DC. supply on the third rail. This apparently has some interesting repercussions with a total number of 105 suicides since services began. To try and prevent any such further attempts and for security purposes CCTVs line every station and passengers are prohibited from crossing a white line at the edge of the platform before the train arrives. Furthermore, idling or sitting on the steps in the platform premises has been barred and security is alerted if anyone in particular lurks around a platform for too long.
Currently work is underway for an extension to the existing route to further cover the southern fringes of the city (Tollygunge to Garia) and a East-West connector is also being planned with the route cutting across the Hooghly river.
The current list of stations(2) from North to South are :
(1) www.kolmetro.com - Official page of Kolkata Metro (currently down, check the Google caches if you need something).
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcutta_Metro - Kolkata Metro entry in Wikipedia
As an afterthought, since the
FIFA World Cup in 2002 all the stations have a half dozen or so
television sets broadcasting a channel specially made for the Metro -
Incoda TV. Its repertoire includes a medley of Hollywood/Bollywood flicks, local news, sports specials and an odd music video every now and then.