BENGALURU: With Chief Minister Siddaramaiah unable to make it to the inspection of the Kempe Gowda Metro station on Wednesday evening, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation officials took newspersons on a second trip around the spacious Kempe Gowda Interchange station and explained the salient features of the station.
R M Dhoke, Director of Rolling Stock, Signalling and Electrical and in-charge of Operations and Maintenance said that the service trials taking place since the night of June 12 would conclude on Thursday night.
On the speed that trains would run, Dhoke said that trains can run the speediest at 72 kmph from Sampige Road to Majestic and National College to R V Road Metro stations. Managing Director Pradeep Singh Kharola said that BMRCL was looking at a ridership of four lakh in the first month.
The attractive lighting that makes the Kempe Gowda Metro station stand out has been made possible by a whopping 1,236 ceiling lights. Abdul Majid, Executive Engineer, Electrical and Mechanical, BMRCL, told Express the dome area alone has 626 lights. “There are 270 lights for the East-West underground
tunnel here and an equal number for the North-South UG tunnel. Each of the four platforms in the station have 240 lights,” he said. Another 150 lights adorn the corridor and other spaces. Elaborating on the enormous power backup here,
Majid said that 66 KV power each from four receiving sub stations of Peenya, Baiyappanahalli, Mysore Road and Yelachenahalli ensure the lights, air-conditioning and other facilities in all stations function always. “Even if they all fail, we still have 4 diesel generator sets which have a capacity of 1010KVA,” he added.