Suburban and city commuters were hit by delays and truncated services through the day after a goods train derailed soon after it passed over a railway overbridge near Beach Station. Five of the 41 wagons of the train that was on its way from Kakinada to Tiruchi ran off the track at about 11.30 a.m., putting one line out of service for the rest of the day.
And, as efforts to remove the foodgrain-laden freight wagons appeared like continuing well into the night, train services along the busy commuter hubs of Beach, Fort and Park stations took a hit.
Many services in the Tambaram-Beach section, or the south suburban line, were terminated ahead of their end-destination at Park station near Chennai Central. Several services also had departures from the Park Station instead of the Beach terminal, which is an operations hub for the south suburban line and MRTS lines.
Railway officials, however, said the disruption was partial and confined to a few EMU services in the Tambaram-Beach section. The MRTS operations were not affected, but there might have been some delays as some services in the south suburban line were rejigged because of the derailment, a Southern Railway official said.
Meanwhile, with the advent of rush hour, scenes of disarray unfolded along several stations in the Tambaram-Beach section. At many places, six and seven trains had begun to line up on the same track shortly after 5 p.m., commuters said.
“2 trains on one track... Chaos at Chetpet. Several trains lined one behind the other..,” Sangeetha Rajesh, who was at the station, wrote on her Facebook page. “Four cars of our train were off the platform and I had to jump to get to the ground,” said Gh. Srinivas, a media professional on his way to the city from Chrompet. “Several others, including women and children, had to sit out the situation and wait for the train to move again,” he said.
