India's first metro rail with aluminium composite panels flagged off in Kochi

<p>The beautiful port city of Kochi in the God's Own Country, Kerala, got a special gift this weekend. Kochi Metro, Alstom's first 'Make in India' venture was inaugurated by the Hon&rsquo;ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi on Saturday, June 17. From being the French major's first entirely designed and manufactured metro in India to featuring the lightweight aluminium composite panels in its structure, Kochi Metro is special in more than one way.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img style="vertical-align: middle;" src="http://www.alcircle.com/uploads/images/KochiMetro.jpeg" alt="News" width="517" height="289" /></p> <p>Kochi metro is the first to have a Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC)-based signalling system, confirmed Alstom.</p> <p>Each train can carry up to 975 passengers and has 136 seats, with wide gangways and longitudinal seating arrangements designed to optimize transport capacity and facilitate easy boarding.</p> <p>Each train body is made of lightweight aluminium composite panels which have an anti-graffiti protection; hence, would help keep the metro clean.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img style="vertical-align: middle;" src="http://www.alcircle.com/uploads/images/KochiMetro2.png" alt="News" width="517" height="342" /></p> <p>For the convenience of elderly and pregnant women passengers a special priority area with different colour schemes has been marked. Some seats have been provided with cushions as well, while some other can be folded at ease.</p> <p>There are special areas for differently abled persons who use wheel chairs.</p> <p>There are multiple charging points inside the trains.</p> <p>{googleAdsense}</p> <p>In the first phase, Kochi Metro will run 13 km and cover 11 stations. However, the planned total route length is 26 km with 22 more stations to be covered later. All the 11 stations are designed on various themes depicting the state's rich socio-economic history.</p> <p>Kochi Metro stands tall as the first "green metro" of the country. In order to promote clean energy, roofs of all the stations covered till now, have been equipped with solar power panels. The panels are expected to generate around 2.3 MW power. Substantial volume of aluminium extrusions has also been used in making these solar panels, confirm reports.</p>