Floods, rivers in spate, landslide wreak havoc on CR

Several services cancelled as heavy rain has cascading impact on suburban and long-distance trains

Six trains had to be terminated at Pune, Daund and Panvel, while 15 trains had to be diverted.

The Central Railway (CR) bore the brunt of Saturday’s downpour as flooding in Badlapur led to complete suspension of services between Kalyan and Karjat.

The Kolhapur-bound Mahalaxmi Express was marooned for nearly 10 hours as the Ulhas river overflowed onto the tracks near Vangani, even as the CR had to cancel several express trains.

The region received extremely heavy rainfall on Friday night, which led to flooding in Ambernath at 10.30 p.m. The cascading impact on suburban services and long-distance passenger trains was immediately felt as several local trains were cancelled. By 11 p.m., seeing the severity of the rains and the flooding, the CR decided to not run any services between Kalyan and Karjat.

Senior railway officials said Mahalaxmi Express was halted before Ambernath owing to the flooding and the National Disaster Response Force had been called in to evacuate passengers.

“The water level was receding and the train was able to move ahead. The plan was to take the Karjat route via Panvel to Kolhapur,” a senior railway official said.

Due to a landslide on Bhor ghat near Lonavala, the train’s usual route had already been affected, officials said. Ahead of Mahalaxmi Express, there was a local train bound for Karjat, which was also marooned near Ambernath. While the local train managed to cross the flooded section near Vangani, the mail express train could not.

A team of CR staff, railway protection force personnel, local police and government railway police reached the spot first. The CR had to cancel the Mumbai-Pune Indrayani Express, the Pune-Ahmedabad Duranto Express, the Pune-Ernakulam Express and the Ernakulam-Pune Express on July 29.

Six trains had to be terminated at Pune, Daund and Panvel, while 15 trains had to be diverted.