Metro Railway will carry out a key technical upgrade at Shahid Khudiram (Briji) station this weekend, marking the first step to reduce overcrowding and long delays on the Blue Line since the closure of Kavi Subhash (New Garia) station on July 28.
To facilitate the work, train services between Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygunge) and Shahid Khudiram will remain suspended from 9am to 4pm on Sunday, Metro officials said. Commercial services on Sundays start at 9am.
The shutdown will allow civil engineering work for setting up a reversal point at Shahid Khudiram — now acting as the southern terminal of the north-south corridor.
“The first phase of the job will be done between 11pm on Saturday and 3pm on Sunday,” a Metro official said. “Once civil work is over, signalling and telecom work will follow, which can be done in phases after regular hours on weekdays.”
Although no specific completion date could be given, the job would be done “as soon as possible”, the official added.
The reversal point at Shahid Khudiram will allow trains to switch direction faster, easing the current delays and helping restore smoother operations.
At present, a train takes nearly five minutes longer to reverse at Shahid Khudiram because it was not built to function as a terminal station. The delay is causing a pile-up of trains, adding to congestion across the corridor.
The July 28 closure of Kavi Subhash station was prompted by cracks in Up platform pillars. Since then, trains have been terminating at Shahid Khudiram, which is an elevated station, unlike surface-level Kavi Subhash. The sharp track gradient
between the two has worsened the delays.
Passenger rush has soared since then — and further increased after the Green Line extension opened on August 22 — pushing the Blue Line to its limits.
Trains are running behind schedule daily and boarding has become a struggle, even during off-peak hours. Stations have witnessed chaotic rush for several days now.
Saradia Sengupta Bhattacharya, who travels between Dum Dum and Rabindra Sadan daily, said her Thursday evening commute took over an hour, instead of the usual 40-45 minutes.
“The train was packed when I boarded at Rabindra Sadan around 6.45pm. At every station, people forced their way in. At MG Road, the train was stuck for about 10 minutes,” she said. Doors frequently failed to close, extending stop durations at almost every station.
Scenes of overcrowding and delays were reported at most stations, including MG Road, Chandni Chowk, and Esplanade.
Metro authorities have tried running some Shahid Khudiram-bound trains from Tollygunge, which has a reversal point and used to serve as the southern terminal. But passengers have refused to disembark. “They simply won’t budge, even after announcements. This is compounding the problem,” an official said.
Metro general manager P. Uday Kumar Reddy said: “The reversal point at Shahid Khudiram will reduce turnaround time and ease pressure on the Blue Line.”