Rail services on the Kasara-Kalyan section on the Central line were thrown out of gear on Friday morning after a tower wagon, which is used to maintain overhead equipment, derailed between Umbermali and Kasara stations during maintenance work.
The incident took place at 1.04 a.m. on the up line towards Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT). The track was made operational by 12.42 p.m. Owing to the derailment, local services were suspended between Asangaon and Kasara and services to CSMT started from Asangaon.
As a temporary measure, long distance passenger trains coming into Mumbai and those leaving the city were run on the single operational line. Commuters stranded between the affected stations were allowed to board the trains till Kalyan to get access to the suburban railway network. However, when the first train arrived at Vasind at 6.05 a.m., commuters frustrated by the lack of services since morning staged a rail roko until 7.55 a.m. During the period of the agitation, CR ran locals only up to Titwala and resumed their services to Asangaon only after 8 a.m.
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The agitation threw a spanner in CR’s works to get the system back in order. “We had initially thought of running all long distance passenger trains through the single line and allowing passengers to board it and also feasibly run a few locals to Kasara. However, due to the agitation there was a bunching up of long distance trains till Igatpuri, due to which we had to divert several trains through another route,” a senior railway official said.
Several trains coming into Mumbai from from Kolkata, Varanasi and Guwahati had to be re-routed, while the Manmad-Mumbai Panchvati Express had to be cancelled along with 27 local services due to the derailment.
Chief Public Relations Officer, CR, Sunil Udasi said that an inquiry was initiated to ascertain the cause of the derailment. “There was no breach of safety. The derailment of the tower wagon happened during maintenance work when no passenger or freight trains are allowed in the section,” he said.
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Harbour line services were also affected on Friday evening for 30 minutes. A goods train heading to Trombay developed a snag at Kurla around 4.20 p.m. leading to bunching up between Wadala and Kurla of locals heading towards Vashi and Panvel . Though the issue was resolved at 5.05 p.m., the cascading effect was felt during the evening peak hours when services ran around 15 to 20 minutes late.