Kolkata, Mar 15 (UNI) Kolkata Metro on Friday began its under-water commercial passenger service heralding a new era for Indian Railways' in its 170 old history.
The underwater commercial service, an engineering marvel linked the 300-year-old city under the Hooghly River with Howrah, one of the busiest railway junctions in India.
The operation started from both sides simultaneously. It began from the Howrah Maidan station on the East-West metro corridor of Kolkata exactly at 7 AM as the boarders cheered and clapped, while another started from Esplanade (Kolkata) station at the same time.
The passenger commercial service commenced exactly nine days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled and traveled 4.7 km underwater from Esplanade to Howrah Maidan, the terminal point of the East-West Metro.
This was a great leap forward in locomotives in India, which was first experienced on April 16, 1853, when the first passenger train (surface) ran between Bori Bunder (Bombay) and Thane, a distance of 34 km. It was operated by three locomotives and had thirteen carriages, a railway source said.
However, the underground locomotive service, also known as tube rail, was introduced on October, 24,1984, also the first in the country, which covered some 3,4 km from Esplanade to Bhowanipu in south Kolkata.
With the commissioning of the East-West connectivity, the authorities also introduced the integrated ticketing system simultaneously to ease the traveling for commuters.
Under the Integrated Ticketing System (ITS) commuters can switch to any corridor (Green, Blue, and Orange) through the interchanging stations (Esplanade and Kavi Subhash) by purchasing tickets once.
These integrated tickets will be sold from the counters only. No Integrated Ticket will be sold from the ASCRM machines of any station of Green Line, Blue Line, and Orange Line. The AFC-PC gates of all the stations have been upgraded accordingly.
At present, no integrated ticket for the Purple Line will be sold,' Kolkata Metro said.
Prices of the tickets vary between Rs 5 and Rs 50 according to the distance, the cheapest and speediest mode of transport in India.
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