Mumbai : The Central Railways gave a tough time to its commuters on Thursday after train services were completely stopped three times on various routes. The commuters were hit hard since Wednesday late night due to the rail fracture at Kalwa which resulted in a delay of about two hours for commuters.
In fact, many of the late night commuters reached home only around 2 am since the track fracture took place at midnight. Even the services for Thursday morning were affected due to an engine failure at Asangaon and yet another rail fracture in Badlapur.
The incident occurred on Thursday at around 12.15 am, when the railway track near Kalwa on the slow line got fractured and trains were diverted to the fast track. The commuters in these trains could not even jump down due the midnight blackout situation. Milind Joshi (name changed), a resident of Titwala who was stuck in a train said, “I left for home late from office on Wednesday night and expected to reach home by 12.30 am. But due to the rail fracture I reached home at 2.30 am”.
The midnight disruption subsequently delayed the Thursday morning services too. Trains towards CST were running behind schedule adding misery to the office goers. While, CR was trying hard to bring trains to run back on schedule, all their efforts went in vain when another rail fracture occurred near Badlapur. This happened when a train heading towards Kasara suffered a rail fracture at 3.25 pm between Badlapur and Wangni stations.
The Chennai Express which was approaching the area had to stop for about two hours resulting in a backlog of suburban trains. Till 5.30 pm not a single suburban train went beyond Badlapur station.
“The rail fracture has been repaired temporarily and train services have started beyond Badlapur. But as there were queue of trains already, the services will run behind schedule”, said a CR official. Due to the heavy congestion, some trains towards CST in the evening were also cancelled. The commuters on the CR were seen planning alternate ways to reach home.
On Thursday late morning, Bhagalpur Express’s engine had broken down near Asangaon station.
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‘No solution to rail fractures’
Division Railway Manager, Central Railway, Amitabh Ojha regretted the inconvenience to commuters and said, “We are trying our best to maintain the rail tracks but atmospheric changes also damage the tracks. In December 2015, we had conducted ultrasonic tests on all the CR tracks. But the sudden fractures are unfortunate. So far there are no permanent solutions for rail fractures,” Ojha added. “However, we get the tracks from the Government of India’s Bhilai steel plant. We need to check the quality”, he said.
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