The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited has entered into a contract agreement with Dinesh Chandra-DMRC JV for the design and construction of the Thane rolling stock depot in Maharashtra. The signing ceremony took place in the presence of Vivek Kumar Gupta, MD of NHSRCL, directors, senior officers of NHSRCL, representatives from JICC (Japan Information & Culture Center), MLIT Japan (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism), JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), the Embassy of Japan in India, and DRA-DMRC JV.
The project encompasses civil works, inspection sheds, maintenance depots, and the installation, testing, and commissioning of maintenance facilities. Spanning an area of approximately 55 hectares, the Thane depot will provide facilities for the upkeep and light maintenance of trainsets. Initially, four inspection lines and ten stabling lines will be constructed, with future plans to increase them to eight and thirty-one, respectively.
Around 200 pieces of 40 types of depot machinery, conforming to Shinkansen standards, will be procured from Japan. These include bogie exchange machines, underfloor wheel re-profiling machines, testers and data readers, ultrasonic flaw detectors, and a trainset washing plant. The Mumbai–Ahmedabad high-speed corridor (bullet train project) will be served by three rolling stock depots located in Sabarmati and Surat in Gujarat, and Thane in Maharashtra. These depots are designed based on the experience of Shinkansen depots in Japan.