Twenty-one years later, crowds cheer another Metro moment in Ghaziabad

India's first RRTS has NCR in awe, but only time will tell its actual impact

Sandwiched between the green nurseries of the Vasundhara locality and the grey fumes of the industrial area in Ghaziabad, the Sahibabad station of the freshly inaugurated Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) stands as the sole attraction on a mundane Saturday evening.

For this district adjoining New Delhi, the station’s location best represents its own story — one of an aspirational cluster of urban, upper middle-income gated societies oscillating between the drive to have their own identity and being brushed aside as the “outskirts of the national capital”.

Families, groups of students, rail enthu­sia­sts, and vloggers have flocked to the station to experience India’s first Namo Bharat train, flag­ged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and opened to the public on Satur­day. The service, earlier called RapidX, under­went a surprise last-minute rechristening.

The excitement is palpable, even during the evening — hours after the station was opened. Even though the crowd is not as big, it is reminiscent of the mania around the Delhi Metro in 2002, after the first stretch between Shahdara and Tis Hazari was opened on Christmas that year.

Even though that Metro was closer to the National Capital Region than it was to the city centre, it was largely Delhi’s moment of glory. Twenty-one years on, a city on the “outskirts of the national capital” has found its own Metro moment.

Plying on a 17-kilometre (Sahibabad-Duhai) section of the Delhi-Meerut RRTS corridor, the train, manufactured by French rail giant Alstom, can travel up to a speed of 160 km per hour, with a design speed of up to 180 kmph.

The traction, signalling, and station development technology of the Namo Bharat service is completely new to India and the trainsets, too, boast features previously unexplored in Indian urban transport, according to the Prime Minister.

In May, National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) Managing Director Vinay Kumar Singh had told Business Standard that RRTS will be the second revolutionary transformation in Indian public transport after Delhi Metro. The corporation plans to open a new stretch of the Delhi-Meerut corridor every six months and provide end-to-end Delhi-Meerut connectivity by 2025.

Awash in a silver livery with shades of blue and red — a design inspired by the Lotus Tem­ple, according to Alstom — the Namo Bharat train this reporter boarded was close to seven minutes late returning from the Duhai Depot.

There are two types of coaches in the train — standard and premium. Fares of the standard coach range from Rs 30 to Rs 50, while those for premium are twice as much. To travel premium, one is required to pass through two automated fare collection (AFC) gates, the second of which is located at the platform itself. It ensures only ticket-holding passengers enter the premium lounge.

Stylish chairs and lights, a magazine stand, and a vending machine are the attractions of this lounge, which spans the length of a singular coach.

The structure of the interiors in the premium coach is akin to the Delhi Metro’s Airport Express Line, with four columns of seats separated by a walkway. The coach itself has a magazine and bottle holder for every seat, a snack vending machine, and a staffer present at all times for assistance.

While the standard coach offers only USB ports for mobile charging, the premium coach, along with comfier seats and more legroom, also has a laptop charging point beside each row of seats.

The train offers a riding experience mar­ginally faster and smoother than the Metro.

The infrastructure and support staff at the terminal stations is more than adequate, but a deserted Duhai station (one before Duhai De­pot) tells a different story. While the ticket ven­ding machine was inoperational at the time, the ticket counter had no provision for digital payments on the first day itself.

Passengers in the standard coach, who have also travelled in Delhi Metro, are having trouble understanding the new system. Unlike the Metro, commuters have to open the doors of Namo Bharat themselves with the push of a button.

The standard coach had a mix of middle-income people, students, and some underprivileged families who merely wanted to experience a luxury they cannot afford regularly. The service has priced them out, but they’re proud nonetheless.

Besides the technological breakthrough and excitement arou­nd it, RRTS 2023 appears to have one more thing in common with Metro 2002.

“I don’t think anyone who came today is a commuter on this stretch,” one of the dozens of facilitating staff members said. Recognisable through their red lanyards, staffers of Deutsche Bahn (the German rail company tasked with operating and maintaining the corridor) are present every few feet to help the uninitiated.

The NCRTC expects a daily ridership of 800,000 people once the 82-km corridor bet­ween Sarai Kale Khan in New Delhi and Meerut is completed, as it will bring down travel time between the two cities to under an hour.

Until the NCRTC completes sections to cap­ture more areas, Namo Bharat is likely to oper­ate more as a site of novelty than one of utility, as a part of the route currently opened is alrea­dy connected by Delhi Metro and there is no dedicated ridership  between Sahibabad and Duhai. Officials at the premises said end-to-end connectivity between the Ghaziabad RRTS and Metro stations will be established soon to provide easy multimodal connectivity to those coming from beyond Ghaziabad and switching to the Metro, until the whole corridor from Meerut to Sarai Kale Khan is ready.