New Delhi: The DMRC has boosted the operational speed of Metro trains on the Airport Express Line to 120 kmph, officials said. Starting sunday, Metro trains on the Airport Express Line will run at 120 kmph and the journey from New Delhi station to newly-built Yashobhoomi Dwarka Sector 25 station will take about 21 minutes, they said.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a metro ride to reach the new station at Dwarka Sector-25. The train he travelled in moved at 120 kmph, so that was in a way a formal start of services with enhanced speed on the Airport Express Line whose extension was also inaugurated by the PM today,” a senior official of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) told news agency PTI.
Owing to the increased speed, the travel time between New Delhi and Dwarka Sector 21 has been reduced from approximately 22 minutes to around 19 minutes, the official said.
According to the DMRC, the approximate travel time between New Delhi and Terminal 3 of the Delhi Airport will be about 15 minutes and 30 seconds which almost 3 minutes fewer than the earlier travel time which was a little over 18 minutes.
This “historic increase” in speed of trains on India’s fastest metro corridor gradually from 90 kmph to 120 kmph has been made possible by “meticulous planning and time-bound implementation by DMRC’s engineers in consultation with a number of other government agencies and domain experts,” the DMRC had earlier said.
The extension of Delhi Metro’s Airport Express Line from Dwarka Sector 21 to Yashobhoomi Dwarka Sector 25 became operational from 3 pm onwards on September 17, officials said.
Delhi Metro had increased the operational speed of its trains on the Airport Express Line from 90 kmph to 100 kmph on March 22 this year, the officials said.
The speed of the trains was further increased to 110 kmph on June 22, which was in turn increased to 120 kmph on Sunday. The safety certification for the speed increase has already been received earlier this month, the DMRC said.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the extension of the Delhi Metro’s Airport Line which now terminates at the YashoBhoomi Dwarka Sector 25 station.
He unveiled a plaque at the new station marking the nearly two-km extension of the Airport Line. The prime minister also interacted with some metro workers at the station.
Before the inauguration, PM Modi took a metro ride from the Dhaula Kuan station to the newly built YashoBhoomi Dwarka Sector 25 metro station during which many passengers interacted with the prime minister and snapped selfies with him.
#WATCH | Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels in Delhi Metro ahead of inaugurating the extension of Delhi Airport Metro Express line from Dwarka Sector 21 to a new metro station ‘YashoBhoomi Dwarka Sector 25’. pic.twitter.com/O3sKCNDcTK
— ANI (@ANI) September 17, 2023
A woman passenger also wished him on his birthday in Sanskrit. PM Modi turned 73 on Sunday.
Later, PM Modi also inaugurated the first phase of YashoBhoomi, the India International Convention and Expo Centre (IICC) in Dwarka.
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