Bengaluru: If commuters are now enjoying the comfort of the Metro Rail on its east-west corridor and other stretches, they have the many engineers, designers and contractors, who toiled hard to make it all come true over several years, to thank. Though it did miss deadlines, building a Metro Rail in a living city was no easy task and required multiple agencies to work together to make it happen.
Reflecting on the hard journey so far, Namma Metro directors, chief engineers, systems engineers and contractors shared their experience at an event held at the Rangoli Art Centre, MG Road Metro station on Wednesday.
Mr Chris Reeves from contract agency CEC-Soma-CICI-JV, who undertook the tunnelling work and also worked on the Metro Rails of Singapore, Hongkong and Delhi, said Bengaluru was the toughest.
“Without any doubt the rough rocks have been quite difficult to overcome. Safety of people and buildings has been our major concern and we have managed to do it without any accidents till now,” he recounted.
Said the chief engineer for Reach 1, Hegga Reddy, “We were given a mandate that the Majestic station had to be ready as quickly as possible. Coordinating among all the departments, electrical, civil, mechanical and so on was a challenge.”
Added Metro's director of rolling stock, Dhoke, “Whenever the civil work ends my actual work starts. It is quite complex as it requires interface of power supply, third rail, signalling and telecommunications, besides the highest level of co-ordination.”
Shifting of equipment was another challenge. Sundareshan from ABB India Ltd, who was chief project manager and responsible for power supply, recalled, “We were using very new technology as we started out in 2009.” “We had to do all that in the night. So when the entire city was sleeping we were working,” he added.
