Mumbai: Commuters Face Local Cancellation, Delays In WR, CR; Metro Plies Additional Services

After facing travel woes over the week due to mega blocks and derailment, the commuters on both Western Railway (WR) and Central Railway (CR) continued to face an ordeal on Monday with technical glitches affecting smooth movement of locals on both the lines. While an issue of cable cutting was detected at around 2am at Borivali station, the services between Kalyan-CSMT and Panvel-CSMT suffered due to some flaws related to the new electronic interlocking system erected at CSMT.

“An issue of cable cutting was detected at around 2 am at Borivali. This led to signal failure, due to which suburban trains were not being operated from platform nos 1 & 2. The trains were operated from platform nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 though,” a senior WR official said adding, about 40 pairs of scheduled trains were cancelled and additional locals were put into service for the convenience of the commuters. “Senior officials and workmen immediately swung into action and the traffic was fully restored and trains resumed by 12.05 pm,” the official said.

The commuters on CR also faced delays in the trains following some glitch in the newly-installed electronic interlocking system. According to commuters, the trains were running late by 25-30 minutes on Kalyan-CSMT and Panvel-CSMT route. It should be noted that CR had held a 63-hour mega block at Thane station from Friday to Sunday, while simultaneously holding a 36-hour mega block at CSMT station on Saturday and Sunday.

“The glitches do happen in the new system. The people are on the job. For a major yard like CSMT the system placed is huge and it takes time to stabilise and to correct faults, if any. These faults can not be identified beforehand as they happen when actual movement happens. Trains were runing but with a delay of 25-30 minutes,” a senior CR official said.

Meanwhile, Maha Mumbai Metro (MMMOCL) additional services on Metro lines 2A and 7. “Due to the delay on the Western Railway, there was a significant increase in overcrowding at Borivali station, Kurar, and Rashtriya Udyan Metro stations. In response, Metropolitan Commissioner Dr. Sanjay Mukherjee instructed the addition of extra services to alleviate the rush. Four extra train sets were added on Metro lines 2A and 7. The provision of additional services with extra train sets continued until the situation normalized,” an MMRDA release said.

"In light of the overcrowding at various metro stations, we took the decision to run extra services. Normally, 21 train sets operate during peak hours, but on Monday a total of 24 train sets were in service,” the release said adding, MMMOCL is committed to providing services during emergency situations.

Chairman of Maha Mumbai Metro & Metropolitan Commissioner MMRDA, Dr Sanjay Mukherjee stated, "We are committed to providing services during emergency situations. No waiting for any formal communication from railways etc, we decided to run extra four rakes, with the help of four rakes additional 16 services were provided till 8 pm."

Maha Mumbai Metro is closely monitoring the situation and has made preparations in case of overcrowding. Three metro trains are on standby at their respective locations for emergency deployment if needed.

Till 8pm, 2.14 lakh people travelled on metro on Monday as against average ridership of 1.85 lakh on regular day till sane time.