Mumbai : The city Monorail witnessed its first major breakdown on Sunday morning with 10 passengers and one pilot left stranded on the elevated track between Bhakti Park and Mysore Colony stations. They were finally evacuated by fire personnel who used snorkels to bring them down to ground from the elevated track.
Monorail officials blamed the three and a half hour disruption on the snapping of power supply due to faulty cables. Nonetheless, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered an inquiry into the incident and asked for a detailed report within 24 hours.
At 7:58 am on Sunday, two of the three trains running on monorail came to a grinding halt near Bhakti Park area in Wadala after power tripped. While RST-9 was heading towards Bhakti Park station, RST-5 had departed from Bhakti Park when the snag first hit it. But soon after, around 8:20 am, the power was restored for a short while which was good enough to bring RST-9 to Bhakti Park station; however, RST-5, heading towards Mysore Colony, was stuck midway between Bhakti Park and Mysore Colony.
As per procedure, after a train halts midway, a team is dispatched on the adjoining track to rescue the stranded commuters. However, with no power supply, the rescue train could not move an inch and the fire brigade officials had to be summoned to carry out top to ground rescue
operations.
The fire brigade reached the spot at 9:15 am but the evacuation was not an easy task as the door of the train had to be mechanically prised opened by manoeuvring a knob outside the shell.
Result: It took the fire brigade officials nearly an hour to evacuate the 11 passengers, including a pilot, who were stranded in the train since 9:50 am. Finally, the rescue operations were carried out with the help of aerial cranes. The officials from MMRDA, on conditions of anonymity, said, “The power supply from the sub-station to the train had tripped, due to which the trains stopped.”
There are five sub-stations and in case of disruption in supply, power is drawn from another sub-station. However, on Sunday the power cable itself had developed a glitch, which prevented authorities from harnessing power from another sub-station.
All the passengers were finally evacuated by 10:45 am, after which the work of restoring the power supply was initiated. The supply was restored around 11 am after which trials were conducted for an hour, and the services resumed at 12 pm.
“This was something completely unexpected. There is constant supervision o ensure that nothing goes wrong. The last major incident occurred in October after which we had made minor modifications,” said Tan Boon Hoe, Chief Operating Officer of operations and Maintenance, Mumbai Monorail.
While playing down the incident, P R K Morthy, Chief of Transport Division, said, “This is a pilot project and the chance of such problems occurring is always there. All necessary steps will be taken to ensure hat the services are improved.”
