Train commuters continued to face the monsoon onslaught on Monday, with a derailment on the Central Railway’s (CR) Main Line, a technical glitch stalling the Monorail for hours, and signal issues on the Western Railway (WR) delaying services during peak commuting hours.
Almost 60 trains were cancelled after one coach of a CST-bound slow local derailed near Kalyan station at 9:52 a.m. Following the incident, slow trains were diverted to the fast train corridor, and the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) was asked to run extra buses on the route, a CR spokesperson said. Restoration work was completed by 12:20 p.m., and services were resumed on both Up and Down corridors by 2:00 p.m.
Narendra Patil, chief public relations officer of Central Railway, said the incident happened when the train started off platform number 1-A of Kalyan station. “We terminated services temporarily at platform 1-A, and ran additional slow trains on fast train corridors. But, the shifting had a cascading effect which increased the delay time as our entire schedule got disrupted.”
While officials said the services were delayed by 20 minutes, commuters complained of 30 minutes’ to an hour’s delay.
The Central Railway had faced over 50 cancellations on Sunday when a landslide was reported near Mumbra station. The situation worsened when tracks at Thane and Kalwa stations were inundated with water.
Similarly, the Mumbai Monorail came to a standstill for over seven hours, owing to a technical glitch between Wadala and Bharat Petroleum stations. The rake started at Wadala at 6:30 a.m. with no passengers on board and halted at Mahul Creek, just before Bhakti Park station, said the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) spokesperson.
“Services between Wadala and Chembur stations resumed at 1:45 p.m., and the faulty rake was towed back to the depot. During this, services between Chembur and Bharat Petroleum stations were functioning as usual,” the spokesperson said.
On the Western Line, trains going towards Churchgate reported a delay of 20 minutes, which was caused by a fault in the train signalling systems, sources said.
