Commuters were hit hard with harbour line shut for nearly one-and-a-half hours and over 20 trains towards Panvel cancelled during evening peak hours on Friday following breakdown of a Panvel-bound coa
Commuters were hit hard with harbour line shut for nearly one-and-a-half hours and over 20 trains towards Panvel cancelled during evening peak hours on Friday following breakdown of a Panvel-bound coach at Masjid Bunder.
Lakhs of Harbour commuters who were heading back home experienced major delay in services when the motor of a Panvel-bound coach began to emit smoke due to overheating. Central Railway (CR) officials had a difficult time clearing the train from the track that was rendered completely useless due to lack of engine from 5. 27 pm. “The train arrived at Vadala at 6.38 pm, so it was at a complete standstill as it took us a lot of time to get the motor running again,” said an official on condition of anonymity.
Commuter Prakash Subramanian (26), who travels from Curry Road to Nerul, was caught in the cross-hairs of the cascading effect. “I had recently given up travelling by train and instead, turned to carpooling but today, because of some reason, I decided to catch the local train again instead. However, I reached Kurla at around 6.00 pm and was stuck there till 7.30 pm. I left as many as two trains as they were extremely crowded,” he said.
Officials feared that the issue occurred due to recent conversion of Harbour line from Direct Current (DC) to Alternating Current (AC) on April 10. “These issues will keep occurring on Harbour line until the new system stabilises. You have to understand that the system has gone from being used to the feeble 1,500 volt of DC to the powerful 25,000 volt,” the official added.
Another commuter, Aakanksha Bajpai (25), who wanted to travel from Andheri to CST, was stuck at Andheri for one hour. “They cancelled two CST-bound trains and I was waiting at the station from 6 to 7.00 pm. I finally caught a Churchgate train and made my way to CST,” she said.
The line was severely affected as there were only two tracks on it, unlike the mainline where trains can be diverted to either the slow or fast line during such situations.
