Delhi’s first dumbbell-shaped station likely to open next month
The Grey Line will connect the rural pockets of the city with Dwarka. Officials said the construction work on the corridor has been completed and it is likely to open for passengers by October.
Lack of space has forced Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to construct the first dumbbell-shaped station in Najafgarh on the rail network. One of the three upcoming stations on the Delhi Metro’s Grey Line, Najafgarh will be ready for passengers by next month.
Senior DMRC officials explained that the Najafgarh station was initially planned in the regular rectangle shape. However, when the work began on-ground, the agency could not acquire some of the private land needed for the project. “We tried hard to explain to the owners of these plots, but since they are yet to see how the Metro will benefit the area they were adamant on their stand. We had no other option but to plan the station with what was available with us,” a senior Metro official said.
The official said the station area shrinks by a few metres in the middle, but the engineers have not compromised with the space required for passenger movement in either ticketing area or the platform. In fact, lengthwise the Najafgarh metro station is 88 metres longer than the length of a regular metro station. The length of Najafgarh station is 288 metres, while the length of an average station is 200 metres.
“All adjustments have been made in the operational area, where our offices and operational rooms are located. The space one enters after swiping the ticket and the area before that is also bigger than the space at other stations,” the official said.
The platform length at Najafgarh is also nearly 195 metres, as against the average 140 metres, officials said.
The Grey Line will connect the rural pockets of the city with Dwarka. Officials said the construction work on the corridor has been completed and it is likely to open for passengers by October. The line has three stations—Dwarka, Nangli and Najafgarh—and it will provide a link with the existing Blue Line (between Dwarka sector-21 and Noida Electronic City/Vaishali).
By 2020, the Grey Line will be connected with another station at the Dhansa Bus Stand.
Before Najafgarh, the DMRC had to alter the design of its station at Ashram (on the Pink Line connecting Shiv Vihar and Majlis Park) because they could not acquire a plot of land. At 151.6 metres long, Ashram went on to become the smallest metro station in the country.
