Mumbai’s suburban railway network witnessed multiple disruptions on Monday after three point failures affected Western Railway (WR) services at Vasai Road, Dadar and Goregaon. A separate incident at Mulund also disrupted Central Railway (CR) operations after construction material came into contact with overhead equipment (OHE).
Around 45 local train trips were cancelled on Western Railway, while Central Railway reported delays to three services after train movement on the Kalyan-bound slow line at Mulund was halted for about 24 minutes. The disruptions during peak hours resulted in overcrowded stations, delays and inconvenience for thousands of commuters.
The first WR disruption occurred at 4.46 am near Vasai Road, where a point on the fast line towards Diva malfunctioned. Railway personnel carried out clamping work and restored the line by 6 am.
Later, at 10.10 am, points on both the Up and Down fast lines at Dadar developed a fault. The points failed to shift from reverse to normal, causing trains to bunch up. The issue was rectified by 11.25 am. A separate point failure was reported at Goregaon at 10.22 am and was resolved within 10 minutes.
Despite the restoration of individual faults, delays continued, with Up slow services running around 30 minutes late during the afternoon.
Commuters travelling during office hours reported significant difficulties. “The train was stuck near Dadar for around 30 minutes. I even stepped onto the tracks, and just as I did, the train started moving. I had to sprint back into the train, but I still reached nearly an hour late. The delay added around 1.5 hours to my workday and completely ruined my morning,” said commuter Pratik Juvekar.
At Mulund, CR services were affected around 11.53 am when a piece of material fell onto the OHE during the dismantling of an old foot overbridge. The incident caused sparks and smoke, prompting officials to stop traffic on the slow line as a precaution.
Railway teams removed the material and inspected the equipment before services resumed at 12.17 pm. Three trains were delayed by 20, 14 and eight minutes, respectively.
The dismantling work was being carried out through the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC). MRVC CPRO Sunil Udasi said, “We will look into the matter and ascertain the facts.”
Source: The Free Press Journal
