Central Railway commences inquiry into recent disruption on 6 lines

The Central Railway (CR) has begun an inquiry into the disruption that led to 70 cancellations and caused all six lines — including two for outstation trains — to come to a stand still on Wednesday.

The inquiry has caused the signal & telecom (S&T) and electrical departments to blame each other for the debacle.

CR general manager Sunil Kumar Sood had clarified that the firm that provided the equipment would be blacklisted. The equipment in question — the Auxiliary Transformer (AT) — is a system that regulates and decreases the voltage for signal cabins that need very little power to operate, and on Wednesday it failed, which resulted in the signal panels/cabins at Vikhroli charring. This caused the signals to fail and all the six lines including long-distance trains to shut down. “The inquiry committee has been made, but right now the S&T and the electrical department are both at loggerheads and are trying to point out each other’s flaws, but this will not help because we have to come out and admit that we failed the Mumbai commuter that night,” said a railway official on the condition of anonymity.

The three-member panel comprises a senior divisional mechanical engineer, senior divisional signal and telecommunication engineer and senior divisional engineer, traction distribution. “We think that in two days a report will be out about on who had the lapse in judgment and a system to avoid these incidents will be put together as well,” the official added.

CR’s divisional railway manager Amitabh Ojha, who called for the inquiry, was extremely tight-lipped when asked if the cause of the breakdown of the system has been ascertained yet.