Services stutter and stumble on Blue Line

Metro commuters had a tough time on Monday evening when services on the Blue Line (Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali) were severely affected due to a technical snag. Stations and trains were packed with passengers as the glitch on the Over-Head Electrification (OHE) wire took over three hours to be rectified.

It was around 4.30 p.m. that a part of an OHE wire snapped between the Subhash Nagar and Tilak Nagar stations. As a result, trains had to run on a single line on a particular stretch, which led to bunching of trains on the line going towards Dwarka. Several trains came to a standstill, while others crawled and stood for over 10 minutes at each station.

Stranded commuters, meanwhile, took to social networking sites to express their anger. “I’ve crossed just four stations in one hour. What’s wrong with the Blue Line?!#delhimetroI’m so irritated now#delhimetroissues,” tweeted Tina Gupta.

Another tweet read, “Stuck on the Blue Line for almost two hours now. Have seen a catfight, a few selfie sessions, taken a nap and died of hunger.#DelhiMetro.”

“Train services on Line 3 (Blue Line) were affected due to OHE breakdown between Subhash Nagar and Tilak Nagar station of Up-Line (going from Noida towards Dwarka) around 4.35 p.m.,” explained a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official.

While the DMRC had planned to operate trains on a single line between Tilak Nagar and Rajouri Garden till the fault was rectified, this did not work out. “Single line operation did not work out between the planned stretch (Tilak Nagar-Rajouri Garden). So, a new stretch was worked out between Rajouri Garden and Janakpuri, and the process increased the time of restoration further,” the official added.

It was only by 7:05 p.m. that the fault was rectified. Normal services were restored by about 7:30 p.m.