Passengers ourtraged over rlys' mismanagement

Mumbai: Commuters, who were already overwhelmed with the physical exhaustion of travelling in peak-evening hours from their offices to home, were the victims of mismanagement by railways once again late Friday night.

Although railway officials said the lines recovered by 8 pm, this did not exactly mean that services were normalised — in fact, going by the accounts of commuters, it was exactly the opposite.

Prakash Subramanian (27)
I was travelling from Parel to Thane. I was stuck at Ghatkopar for almost 30 minutes at around 11 pm. There is no way to know what is going to happen, so you don’t know if you should wait in the train or get down and walk it down the track, all you can do is sit there and keep getting frustrated at the fact that the railways don’t seem to know how to handle a slight drizzle.

Aakansha Bajpai (26)
I met a few friends at Dadar and reached the platform (to go to Kalwa) at around 10 pm. The trains were not available at all and the one that I did get after almost 40 minutes was running very slowly. We reached the Parsik tunnel at around 12.30 am and women started panicking after it was stationary inside it for more than 45 minutes. We began to close the doors fearing someone might rob us.

Shrutika Maheshwari (29)
I left Andheri and came down to Wadala... I came down to the platform to catch my Vashi train but there were so many people waiting for the train and I knew some was amiss.

The train was not late by more than 20 minutes but that half-an-hour on Vashi bridge left me breathless as it was too hot and there were just too many people.