Delhi Metro to get 340 cars before Commonwealth Games

Delhi’s Metro is all set to get spanking new rail cars in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. The Metro has awarded a $590 million (Rs 2,360 crore) contract to supply 340 metro cars to Canada’s Bombardier Transportation.

Bombardier, known as a maker of business jets, is actually the world’s top supplier of metro vehicles and more than 1,400 of its cars run in New York, London, Paris, China’s Guangzhou and Shenzhen provinces and several other cities.

Bombardier said in a statement on Thursday that its coaches would help the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation move four million passengers daily in its extended network for which work is on across the capital.

Bombardier’s Movia vehicles that Delhi Metro has ordered are configured in four-car sets and can carry up to 1,480 passengers at a time. Deliveries are due to begin in the last quarter of 2008.

Bombardier said its rail cars would help the city tackle pollution by helping create an alternative to one million cars.

“We are very excited to be able to add the city of New Delhi as a new metro customer,” said Andre Navarri, the president of Bombardier. “We have been an employer in India for over 35 years and we hope that this project will set the standard for other mass-transit projects that we intend to pursue in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, Chandigarh and throughout India.”

Bombardier will make some key parts of its metro cars in Germany and Sweden and other parts in India.