Harbour line thrown out of gear by Raoli signal failure

Barely a week after one of the biggest failures on Central Railway (CR) mainline resulted in over 100 cancellations, Harbour services were thrown into disarray owing to a signal failure at Raoli.

Raoli is an important junction near Harbour line’s Vadala station but on Wednesday, services were completely shut down from 5.27 pm to 6.21 pm. Finally, even without the signal being fixed, the motormen were told to run services on “authority” i.e. if the path was clear, they could take the train further.

The cause of signal failure is being disputed even as some CR officials said that a fire next to the signal cables was the reason behind it. Others denied such reasoning saying that the assessment had come a good two-and-a-half hours after the incident. “How can officials reach the spot after two-and-a-half-hours and make this assessment ” questioned a senior railway official.

Till the time of going to print, around 25 services had been cancelled and 15 services partially cancelled due to the Harbour disruption. “We expect around 70 services will be cancelled by the end of the night,” the official added. The CR has yet to find the reason behind failure of the Auxiliary Transformer (AT) at Vikhroli on May 25.