Train services on the Western Railway were severely affected on Monday after a technical glitch occurred. At around 5:50 am the overhead cable snapped between Dahisar and Borivali that led to disruption in train running which delayed by 15-20 minutes in the first half of the day.
In fact the morning peak hours made train travel miserable for commuters due to the delays that went on for even upto 30 minutes especially those coming from Virar and going to Churchgate on the through or fast line. The incident occurred between Dahisar and Borivali stations at 5.50 am. After this, commuters were forced to get down from the tracks and they started moving along the tracks on rail lines towards Borivali station.
One could see local trains stranded one behind the other and it was still dawn. The Western Railway authorities were struggling to rectify the OHE cables and they took more than 90 minutes for sorting out the technical failure. Thousands of commuters rushing to their work places were stuck as the suburban trains that currently caters to 37-lakh odd people, while going towards the southern direction.
“Our engineers went to the site for rectifying the technical failure. The overhead cables that supplies power to the local trains snapped and we managed to rectify it by 7:23 am. We had to cancel 30 train services through the day,” said a Western Railway official.
A majority, including women were seen jumping down on the tracks and hiking it out to the nearest station Dahisar or Borivali, waiting for the resumption of services. People complained that despite the Up fast line was affected by the technical failure, other three slows on slow and fast corridors were also affected due to bunching of trains. Commuters took to social media where they claimed that trains were arriving on time and those coming were super crowded.
Those who walked towards Dahisar and Borivali stations went to nearest bus stops to go further south to reach their destinations. Some took the slow trains starting from Borivali. “The trains from Borivali were also running late. Thankfully we managed to get an entry inside the local train,” said Hiren Jain, resident of Dahisar. Trains were affected even during the day as well as the delays continued by 5-10 minutes.
Past instances:
November 3: There was an engine failure of a Goods train between Virar and Vaitarna stations which affected local and long distance train services. On the same day engine of Mangala Express also suffered technical glitch which affected Central Railway
February 27: There was a massive power outage in south Mumbai due to grid failure. This resulted in off-supply to railways as well that affected train services especially on Churchgate-Vile Parle route.
March 30: The express train coming from Latur to Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus was affected after a sudden locomotive failure that happened between Ambernath to Badlapur.
April 16: There was a derailment of three coaches between Dadar and Matunga on Central Railway which disrupted train services for 14 hours.
May 4: Movement of a dozen trains got affected on Mumbai-Ahmedabad route due to OHE failure between Vadodara and Bharuch.
May 4: Technical issues with the signalling system at Vashi station led to cancellation and delays of local trains on Panvel-CSMT route
Common Reasons:
- OHE failure occurs in case the cable snaps or an external object falls on the 25000 volt Alternating Current line which disrupts supply. At times even the pantograph above the roof of a local train gets entangled with the OHE cables.
- Signalling failures happen in case of theft of signal cables, damage to these cables or any other technical reason.
- Engine or locomotive failure can also occur due to various reasons and glitches.
- Derailment can happen in case of fault in rail tracks, human error, issues with wheels and axles, or any other reason.
