Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) suspended direct trains from Chennai Central to airport for several hours on Sunday owing to track maintenance, causing inconvenience to a large number of commuters.
On Saturday, CMRL had announced that the direct train services between Central and airport would not run and that commuters had to change trains at Alandur to travel to the airport due to maintenance work carried out on the tracks.
This was set right around 11 a.m. on Sunday and subsequently, regular services resumed.
This work had to be executed as a few days ago, a small section of the track near Airport Metro station suffered a crack, sources said.
Probe sought
“We were seriously concerned when it was noticed. This is definitely not a minor issue and needs to be investigated,” a source said.
The quality of rails were excellent and the officials suspect that this might have occurred due to the problems with welding or other execution issues.
“So much money has been spent on purchasing the rails and carrying out the work. In a ballastless track, such problems should not emerge within 5 to 6 years of operation. If this was regular maintenance work as claimed, it could be carried out at night and not during the train operation timings causing inconvenience to passengers,” another source said.
‘Tracks are safe’
According to officials of CMRL, this was regular maintenance work and that there was no cause for concern. They refuted the claims that this was a serious issue.
“The tracks are checked every night and during one such inspection, we found the fault and rectified it immediately,” an official said.
Sources said some minor issues persist in the stretch between AG-DMS and Washermanpet opened early last year.
