The very first consignment of Dhaka Metro Rail coaches has arrived at Mongla port and is being offloaded at jetty 7.
Mongla Port Authority Chairman Rear Admiral Mohammad Musa said the vessel SPM Bangkok, carrying six coaches, anchored at the jetty around 4:30pm on Wednesday.
“The work to offload the coaches started nearly two hours later,” he said.
Another 138 coaches will be shipped and then offloaded at the port, before all the coaches are sent to Dhaka through the riverway.
Sources at the port said 12 experienced workers have been tasked with the offloading, using a crane.
“Initially, two of the coaches will be brought down from the vessel,” said one of the port officials. He hoped that the rest coaches would be offloaded by Thursday afternoon.
The foreign vessel will leave the port for Thailand after the offloading is complete.
Earlier in the day, Md Ohiduzzaman, general manager of Ancient Steamship Company Limited, the local shipping agent of the foreign ship, said the vessel was to anchor at the port at around 4pm.
The coaches were initially supposed to arrive on Tuesday, but the ship could not set sail from Chittagong on account of the designated pilot arriving late on Monday night.
A mother vessel with the six coaches left Japan’s Kobe for Mongla on March 4, Managing Director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) MAN Siddique told BSS on Monday.
"We hope that more coaches will reach the Uttara metro rail depot on April 23 and the second metro rail set will be shipped on April 15 from Kobe port," he told the state news agency.
According to project details, integrated tests of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line-6 will be carried out before formal operation. Trial runs will also be carried out after the integrated test.
The original length of the metro rail route was 20.1 km to Motijheel, but it has now been extended by 1.16km to Kamalapur Railway Station. As a result, the number of stations has increased to 16.
There will be a total of 16 stations on the 21km route of the Mass Rapid Transit-MRT Line 6.
The stations will be located at Uttara North, Uttara Center, Uttara South, Pallabi, Mirpur 11, Mirpur 10, Kazipara, Shewrapara, Agargaon, Bijoy Sarani, Farmgate, Karwan Bazar, Shahbag, Dhaka University, Bangladesh Secretariat and Motijheel.
