Mumbai: Services on the Harbour Line were disrupted for nearly 15 hours after a goods train carrying around 90 tonnes of pulses derailed between Ravli Junction and Kurla, near Guru Tegh Bahadur (GTB) Nagar station at 4.09 a.m. on Monday.
Though shuttles and BEST buses were arranged for the passengers to reach their destinations, chaos prevailed at the Harbor Line stations and some part of the Central Railway.
The pulses had to be removed from the three derailed wagons before they could be cleared from the tracks. “Prima facie it is a case of rail fracture, but we have not reached any conclusion. Investigations are on,” said a Central Railway official. Officials, however, ruled out any sabotage.
According to railway spokesperson Narendra Patil, nearly 54 BEST buses and 142 shuttle services were pressed into service, but passengers were heard complaining about the bad services. Shuttle services were run between Kurla, Belapur and Panvel, Kurla and CST, Kurla and Vashi, and Wadala and CST. Railway officials said they had to cancel 188 trains.
Sharad Bhatt, who was travelling to his office at CST, said it was full chaos at the stations and he somehow managed to go back home. “There were buses but the capacity was limited and passengers were more.”
Another passenger Kavita Singh, who daily commutes between Vashi and Thane, said it was a horrific situation at platforms. “I waited for almost two hours but couldn’t go to my office. I finally took an auto and went back home.”
The three wagons were removed from the derailment site by 3.50 p.m. The first wagon was cleared at 12.10 p.m., the second one at 1.30 p.m., and the third one was removed at 3.50 p.m. The first train on the Up line crossed the site at 8.07 p.m.; the first Down train reached GTB Nagar at 8.45 p.m. However, the other 39 wagons full of pulses were cleared in the morning.
