Science Museum Metro Station - A Immemorial Visit.

One endearing image of the city of Mumbai, these days, is an unprecedented level of infrastructure construction work going on across the city including the works for the Mumbai Metro. Notwithstanding the Covid pandemic, which has rampaged the city of Mumbai and brought down the pace of these works, the Mumbai Metro construction work has once again picked up pace and continuing unabated. One of the major construction site of the Mumbai Metro is right opposite our science centre where a Science Museum station is coming up in  the Metro-3 corridor. The Mumbai Metro Line 3 is one of the most challenging engineering works for the Metro construction in Mumbai since this corridor is fully underground and it connects south Mumbai to the city’s western suburbs. It therefore was a privilege and honour for me to visit the Science Museum metro construction site yesterday and see first hand the tunnel boring machine live in action. The Line 3 metro is the first underground metro line for Mumbai, which is taking  metro services to the very tip of the Mumbai peninsula at Cuffe Parade. All the other public rail services including the metro services in the city are either at grade or elevated.

The Aqua Line ( Line 3) Metro spans a distance of 33.5 kilometres and will have 27 stations, including the Science Museum station -  just opposite our science centre, in its route. When completed, some time next year end, the Metro Line 3 will connect Cuffe Parade to Marol Naka passing through some of the most crowded areas including Worli. The Nehru Science Centre will be one of the major beneficiaries of this metro line and we earnestly hope that visitors to our science centre will improve substantially courtesy the connectivity that the Metro line 3 will provide for our visitors. For creating an awareness on the engineering marvels that this metro construction incorporates, we had organised an exhibition of the Mumbai Metro 3 at our Centre, which was opened by the then head of the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC), Ms. Ashwini Bhide on the Technology Day - 11th May, in 2018. Nearly three years later the pace at which the metro construction work has progressed is mind boggling, although there has been some delay due to the setback faced because of the Covid pandemic.

For quite sometime I was contemplating in visiting the Science Museum Metro construction site, which unfortunately had not happened until yesterday when the authorities of MMRC facilitated my visit to the site along with two of my colleague Engineer curators from our Centre. Mr Rohit, from the MMRC, incharge of the Science Museum metro station site, along with his other team of engineers, who have been tasked with this monumental work, offered us a guided visit to the underground works. The very site of the TBM piercing through the rocky area, 25 metres below the surface, to create the path for the metro line going southward’s towards Mahalaxmi station, with all those engineering paraphernalia with extraordinary safety protocols that are warranted in such projects, was a sight that will remain etched in my memory for years to come. Meandering through the massive construction site within the specially created movement path, we journeyed 25 metres below and walked more than a kilometre to see the construction and the tunnel boring works in action. Slightly more than half a kilogram of safety kit, which we were mandated to carry, was one of the prerequisite material which we had to carry alongside sporting the special shoes, helmet and jacket which were provided to us by the MMRC team. We walked through tonnes and tonnes of steel and other concrete materials with girders and unending metallic pipelines and very heavy duty motors and pumps, which were running full throttle to carry the caved in materials from the rocky areas to create the path for the Metro. Unfortunately, due to security measures, we could not photo document this fascinating site and journey of ours which we undertook towards that historic 1118m up-line tunnel towards Mahalaxmi, which is currently in progress. We were accompanied by Mr Rohit from MMRC and other engineers from Dogus-Soma JV, who have recommissioned their second tunnel boring machine (TBM) 1239 for connecting end of the Science Museum Station site towards Mahalaxmi Station. This 6.65m Robbins slurry machine, the TBM, nicknamed Tansa 2, had earlier been used for connecting Science Museum station to Worli Station in March 2020.  The Tansa 2 TBM uses a cutter head and shields, which  weigh 480 MT. The very sight of the transportation of this giant TBM on road some time in August last year was quite historic and this transportation coincidentally was carried out by the same agency and the gentleman who had transported our Electric Locomotive from Sion station to our campus in Worli in November 1979. We walked all the way to the TBM machine, interacted with the technicians and engineers and tried quenching our thirst for understanding some basics of the monumental engineering challenges that engineers are facing while executing such mammoth engineering works. 

This experience of walking through the construction site completely flooded with heavy engineering machines and instrumentation panels etc. with a range of safety sensors and feedback instrumentation interfaced to the computers in the main TBM control room, which was being operated by the skilled technician, appeared more like a cockpit of the aeroplane fitted with a range of instrumentation panels. The TBM operators who work in two shifts of 12 hours each in those trying circumstances manage to bore some 20 metres or so per day. We were informed that the place we were standing and interacting with the engineer and operator of the TBM was below the western suburban line below the Mahalaxmi station and that those unending movement of the trains is one of the many challenges, which the engineers and designers have kept in mind while designing and executing the project with all the redundancy and other safety engineering measures put in place while engineering this project. Engineers are a set of those unsung and nameless heroes and heroines who work silently and tirelessly behind the scene to create extraordinary comforts for humankind, applying the scientific knowledge to create engineering marvels that benefit society. The extraordinary role played by the unsung heroes - engineers, who apply their minds to engineer solutions to problems has been very well documented with some great examples by one of my young US based friend, Mr Guru Madhavan in his book ‘Applied Minds’. Incidentally he delivered a lecture on this subject at our Centre in 2019.

This book - Applied Minds,  is an engineer's delight since it provides a plethora of examples of how engineers apply their problem solving minds to analyse complex engineering and technical problems to find solution spaces that an engineering mind can create for solving complex problems. Engineers silently articulate their engineering minds, behind the scenes of glory,  to try and formulate and see solutions and structure where there is none and adapt themselves to design solutions under constraints. The author of the book, Guru Madhavan, considers science, philosophy and religion as the pursuit of truth while engineering is at the centre of producing utility under constraints. The outcomes of engineers are there for everyone to experience and enjoy and one such engineering marvel is the Mumbai Metro Line 3, which I had the honour to have a glimpse of. Therefore in a way I wish to dedicate this blogpost as a tribute to the engineers - unsung heroes and builders of our modern society. 

Mumbai, a cosmopolitan city of hope and aspiration for millions is majorly dependent on the rail transport. The Mumbai suburban Rail transport (central, western and harbor line) is inextricably linked to most Mumbaikars, for whom Rail is their lifeline. The EMU ( Electric Multiple Unit) services are a house hold name in Mumbai. The Mumbai electric rail transport started on February 3, 1925, when the the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) introduced the first electric train (EMU) that ran between Bombay VT ( now CSMT) and Kurla Harbour.  Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai is privileged to be in possession of one of the earliest electric locomotives, which ran in the city of Bombay (Mumbai) during the period from 1930 to 1960s. This 90 plus years old Electric locomotive engine was donated by the Central Railway to our centre in the year 1979.

Although, daily, more than 2000 plus train services in Mumbai are commissioned to hurtle through the city, carrying millions of Mumbaikars to their destinations, yet the ever increasing population and unending migration of people to the Mumbai metropolis was making it extremely difficult and often times dangerous for people to commute by suburban rail. Most rail commuters in Mumbai, specially during the peak hours, are confronted with every day challenge of searching for foot-space in a train that does not even have an additional square inch of space left. Realising this hard fact, the civic infrastructure planners have long been struggling with solutions and have firmly believed that the time has truly come for ‘the lifeline’ of Mumbai to now change to Metro (rail based Mass Rapid Transit System). Accordingly the Government of Maharashtra, taking on board all stakeholders, has committed to implementing the ‘Metro Rail Projects’ to improve traffic & transportation scenario in Mumbai Metropolitan Region(MMR) and has entrusted this task to the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA), with the Chief Minister as it’s Chairman, to implement its vision. The ambitious Metro Rail Master Plan includes 9 corridors covering a total length of 146.5 k.m., out of which 32.5 k.m was proposed underground and rest elevated. One of the most challenging corridors in this master plan that employs the best of technology, is the Metro 3 project with Science Museum as one of it’s important stations. The Nehru Science Centre had hosted an exhibition in 2018, which briefly presented the making of this challenging metro line. Ms Ashwini Bhide, the then MD of MMRC had inaugurated this exhibition and delivered an outstandingly informative and fear allaying lecture on this project, particularly highlighting the Line 3.

Ms Bhide had spoken on the technological challenges involved in the project while honestly touching upon some societal issues including displacement of people and also uprooting of several trees. She was honest about the sound pollution and such other medium term problems that the project will create but was unequivocal in stressing that they are most concerned about these issues and are doing all that is possible to mitigate the hardships. She listed out details of the rehabilitation plans and also the plans for plantation of innumerable number of trees in lieu of the ones which were mandatorily required to be uprooted. She informed the audience that they have achieved an important mile stone of completing more than 2kms of tunneling in a short span. She spoke on how the MMRC is using Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) at various launching shafts for tunnel construction and added that the metro line 3 had so far received eleven TBMs, out of which eight had been lowered and have started main drives. She added, the MML-3 would bring multiple benefits such as comfortable Air conditioned travel for more than 16 lakh commuters daily, reduction in travel time, reduction in air & noise pollution, improving safety & security of the citizens etc. Upon completion, this fully underground corridor with 27 stations would connect Six business districts, 30 educational institutes, 30 recreational facilities and domestic as well as international airport terminals.

The Metro transport has revolutionised public transport in most parts of the world including the city of Delhi, which now boasts of an advanced metro rail system. As per the data available from the Advancing Public Transport (UITP) site, which provides the statistics of the world metro figures, at the end of 2017, there were established metro networks in 178 cities in 56 countries, carrying an average total of 168 million passengers per day. This massive growth is largely to be credited to developments in a few Asian countries which are prioritising this sustainable mode of transport. It adds that a total of 194 metro lines (both existing and new networks) accounting for approximately 40% of the length of metro infrastructure worldwide, have been opened in this period. Among the new metro systems that were inaugurated in this period, Mumbai is one of them and the others include ; Salvador (Brazil), Changsha, Ningbo and Wuxi (China), Shiraz (Iran) and Panama City (Panama). The Mumbai Metro 1 (Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar) corridor was opened to commuter traffic in June 2014. It has now emerged as the most hassle free transportation mode and its ridership per weekday jumped to 3.55 lakh commuters in 2017, up from 2.96 lakh in February 2016. Mumbai Metro 1 has surpassed the projected ridership of around 4.2 lakh. Before the pandemic hit the city, Mumbai Metro 1 had a ridership of 4.5 lakh on weekdays.

The Metro Transport is one of the most preferred transport in the world with several densely populated cities adopting this means of transport. The busiest metro network in the world is Tokyo, which boasts close to 3.6 billion passenger journeys per year. Chinese metro systems, have experienced even more significant passenger growth, with Beijing (+39%) and Shanghai (+25%) rising to 2nd and 3rd busiest networks. Taken together, metro systems in Asia carry over 80 million passengers per day, nearly half the world total passengers and with most Indian cities preferring this mode of transport this number is only heading north words. The New Delhi metro ridership has crossed the 1800 million ridership per year in 2018. Metros are of critical importance for mobility, as societies are becoming ever more urbanised and hopefully the Mumbai Metro will follow the path of the New Delhi Metro and will help in easing the commutation difficulties that the Mumbaikars face. Our science centre will be one of the major beneficiaries once the Mumbai Metro 3 is in operation since the Science Museum Station just opposite to our Centre will be a landmark that will help not only with access to our Centre but also in marketing our science museum to many more new visitors. 

I am sharing some of the earlier images of the construction site of Science Museum Metro station which Mr Rohit had shared with me besides images of my visit to the site on 26th March 2021.