A few stones placed at the point where two railway tracks cross each other between Tambaram and Tambaram Sanatorium railway stations on Thursday, caused the disruption of train services on Thursday morning.
The stones, that form the ‘ballast’ on which the tracks on the sleepers rest, were found at the ‘cross –over’ point at 9.15 a.m. by railway gangmen who visited the spot as the automatic signals stopped functioning, resulting in delays in the movement of trains between two stations.
Due to the presence of these stones, the main line was unable to merge with the loop line and subsequently, there was no green signal.
This resulted in a cyclical effect and no suburban services could be operated for about 30 minutes until the stones were removed from the spot. A couple of services from Chennai Beach to Tambaram were terminated at Pallavaram and sent back to Beach. Normal services were restored by 9.45 a.m., officials said.
Southern railway sources suspect that children might have placed the stones in between the two tracks.
They interacted with heads of a few schools in and around Tambaram to instruct their students not to walk along the railway lines between the two stations.
