Orange Line: Track radically changes the view

LAHORE:

Once completed, the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMP) project will permanently change the way the corridor looks near Dera Gujjaran where the track is as high as a six-storey building.

Technical documents of the project available with The Express Tribune show that the track’s height will be between 36-feet and 40-feet (as high as a four-storey building) in most areas.  The highest point along the track is at 62-feet. It is where the track crosses over the Lahore Ring Road’s Quaid-i-Azam Interchange near Dera Gujjaran on Grand Trunk (GT) Road. It then descends to a height of 18-20 feet between Dera Gujjaran and Sultanpura along GT Road. Train stations at Islam Park, Salamatpura, Mehmood Booti, Pakistan Mint, Shalimar Garden, Baghbanpura, University of Engineering and Technology (UET) and Sultanpura stations will be at 50-feet height. From Sultanpura, the track will descend to 40 feet till it goes underground after passing the Lakshmi Chowk station.



There will be two stations in the underground section – the central station (near the General Post Office) and the Anarkali station.

The track will pass the Green Line (Metro Bus) near Anarkali station. It will ascend to the ground level before Chaburji station and then settle at a height of around 40 feet till Sabzazar station. The height of the track will vary between 25-feet and 40-feet from Awan Town to Thokar Niaz Beg. The track will end at Ali Town at a height of 20-feet. Speaking to The Express Tribune, Habib Construction Services CEO Shahid Saleem, the project contractor for the OLMT package 1, said the height of the track had been kept between 36-feet and 40-feet in most areas to prevent a major disruption to existing road and railways infrastructure.



He said pillars for the track had been erected in most package 1 areas.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st,  2016.