It was a sour beginning of the week for the thousands of Delhi Metro commuters on Monday as technical glitches crippled train operations on the Blue Line and Violet Line during the morning peak hours between 8 am and 9 am.
Morning commuters suffered a harrowing experience after trains were delayed and many were left stranded at various stations on the Dwarka to Noida City Centre/Vaishali route as services were disrupted due to a problem in the track circuit. Commuters on the Violet Line faced a similar situation as a train developed glitch on the line, forcing other trains to be delayed.
A Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official said that the “track circuit” on Blue Line (Line 3), that connects Dwarka to Vaishali, dropped while a train developed snag on Violet Line around the same time.
“Trains were running at a restricted speed on Line 3 (due to track circuit failure) and lane 6 (train motoring issue) leading to bunching. Services became normal as the bunching was cleared. Due to track circuit failure, the operational control centre could not control train operations on Line 3. So trains had to be operated in manual mode which slowed down their movements,” the official said.
This had a cascading effect as trains frequently stopped on tracks before entering stations while crowd kept swelling on the platforms.
Delhi Metro’s Line 6 connects Faridabad’s Escorts Mujesar to ITO in the heart of the capital.
Piyali Gupta, a commuter who works in Central Delhi, said: “Trains were stopping for at least 10 to 15 minutes at the stations on the route and running very slow. I reached office an hour late.”
Many other passengers complained of chaotic situation on both the lines as several people were stranded waiting for trains to arrive. Office-goers had a rough time with Metro services delayed and major traffic snarls on arterial roads.
