A fire triggered by Diwali firecrackers between Nallasopara and Virar damaged railway signalling infrastructure late on Sunday night, affecting suburban train services on the Western Railway (WR) corridor between Virar and Churchgate.
The incident led to delays of 20-30 minutes during Monday morning’s peak travel hours, causing inconvenience to commuters heading towards south Mumbai. Railway authorities reported that the blaze broke out around 11.20 pm after unidentified individuals allegedly burst firecrackers near the tracks.
“We found burnt firecrackers at the site. The dry grass burst into flames; the fire was extinguished by 11:50 pm,” said a WR official.
Railway personnel reached the location and brought the fire under control within approximately 30 minutes. However, signalling cables running alongside the tracks had already sustained damage.
According to WR officials, the incident affected 20 signalling cables and disrupted seven signals across both Up and Down lines. The damage also caused multiple track circuits to fail, forcing railway authorities to implement restricted operating procedures.
The disruption affected 14 suburban services on Sunday night. The impact increased on Monday, when 35 local trains were cancelled and around 150 services experienced delays.
With the signalling network compromised, trains travelling towards south Mumbai were required to pass signals displaying an A-marker, following prescribed railway safety procedures. This restricted movement reduced operating speeds and affected train frequency across the corridor, with both suburban and long-distance services experiencing disruptions.
Railway teams initiated repair work and installed additional cables to restore the damaged network. Officials expected normal operations to resume after completing the restoration process.
“Restoration work is underway, and railway staff have laid additional cables to repair the damaged signalling network. Complete restoration is expected by the night of November 9-10,” said a WR official.
Another official said, “Our technical teams were attending to the problems to restore the affected signalling equipment at the earliest,” as efforts continued to repair the signalling infrastructure and bring services back to normal.
Source: Hindustan Times
