Waterlogging, snags delay suburban trains, commuters hit hard

 A day after Mumbai received its first good rainfall, suburban services of Central Railway were crippled due to waterlogging and technical snags that badly hit the movement of commuters and office-goers.

Yesterday, the local train services of Western Railway (WR) were disrupted for nearly an hour following power failure caused by theft of a battery box at Mahim station.

Heavy rains since last night and subsequent waterlogging at five vulnerable spots, failure of Mandovi Express engine at Dadar station, passengers' outcry at Diva station and a landslide caution near Parsik tunnel near Mumbra severely affected the suburban train operations of Central Railway this morning, a senior railway official said.

He said the problem started with waterlogging at Mankhurd, Vidyavihar, Vikhroli, Bhandup and Thane suburban stations in wee hours today, which led to reduced train speed. This caused bunching of the trains on certain rail tracks.

The woes of commuters increased after the engine failure of Mandovi Express was reported at Dadar station. Because of this, the fast trains were being diverted to the slow line.

"Additionally, few passengers came on the tracks due to unavailability of space on platforms at Diva station which prompted railway police and RPF authorities to deploy the additional force at the station to prevent any untoward incident," said the official.

The problem further worsened after officials cautioned about a possible landslide near the Parsik tunnel, through which the trains pass.

"The railway immediately passed a caution order to the motormen to reduce the speed of local trains," the official said, adding that all these reasons led to cancellation and diversion of several trains.

Central Railway's Senior PRO A K Jain said, "We were keeping our passengers informed through all possible medium, including social media, FM radio and electronic media about the situation."

He also said that officials have already swung into action to rectify the problems and assured that services would be restored soon.