new delhi with the trains on airport express line running at 100kmph from wednesday commuters can now travel between new delhi airport line and dwarka sector 21 stations in around 21 minutesmetro officials said the target was achieved in six months instead of the usual 18 months through a detailed mechanism for replacement of certain rail components maintenance and repair of civil structures and reprofiling of certain rolling stock componentsincreasing the operational speed of airport express link to 100kmph was a major engineering challenge for delhi metros engineers meticulous planning roundtheclock supervision and determination to not let the work impact passenger operations were the key highlights of this mammoth effort this will rank as one of the most challenging technological advancements in the history of metro train operations in the county said anuj dayal principal executive director of corporate communications at delhi metro rail corporation dmrcafter reducing the travel time from 22 minutes dmrc targets to bring it down to 19 minutes by increasing the speed finally to 120kmph in a graded manner the 23kmlong line is the fastest metro connection in india providing seamless connectivity from new delhi railway station to dwarka sector 21 through igi airport t3 on average 65000 people travel on this line dailythe major work undertaken to make the shift was replacement of more than 26 lakh tension clamps on the rails across the line with highfrequency ones to make them more compatible with the revised speed strengthit was an extremely challenging task for the maintenance team to replace all clamps within the allotted maintenance block hours more than 100 technical staff were deployed each night to ensure timely completion once they were replaced each fastening was checked thoroughly said an official