Over 100 cancellations, slow services towards Virar shut for a while; fast corridor affected too.
Over 100 cancellations, slow services towards Virar shut for a while; fast corridor affected too.
The Western Railway (WR) saw over 100 cancellations due to the derailment of one empty coach at Lower Parel on Tuesday morning. Although no one was injured in this accident, the slow services towards Virar were completely shut for a while and the same line towards Churchgate saw a delay of 20 to 25 minutes.
The commuters on the WR saw severe delays and disruptions as the slow line towards Churchgate was also affected and trains were delayed by an average of 20 minutes. Shrutika Maheshwari (25), a marketing executive who was travelling from Bandra to Churchgate, was one of the commuters who came to know about the incident only on reaching the station. “I was not aware of the issue but when I reached the station I though I might as well wait and see the situation. The indicators were all showing 0:00 and I caught the slow to Churchgate at around 8:50 am. The train was very slow and I finally made it to Churchate at around 9.45 am,” she said.
To meet the increasing rush the WR itself did run 20 extra services from Bandra to Andheri and the Brihanmumai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) ran around 23 extra services from Lower Parel to east the traffic.
The cascading effect of the incident did spill on to the fast corridor as well with a delay of 10 minutes on an average until the coach was re-railed at 9.30 am and the first service was run around 10:15 am. “We tried to facilitate movement of the passengers as much was we could by running the special trains but yes, there was an average,” said WR chief public relations officer Ravindra Bhakar. It took the WR around six-hours to re-rail the one coach as the work was to be done by a crane.
