New Delhi: Commuters of the Delhi Metro’s Blue Line faced a harrowing time on Wednesday as train services were severely crippled due to a technical snag at Dwarka station. The corridor was plagued by multiple technical snags on Wednesday – one which occurred in the morning peak hours and another that affected the evening peak hour rush. There were several delays across the busy 50-kilometre-long stretch, which runs from Dwarka Sector-21 station to Vaishali and Noida City Centre.
In the morning, the delays were caused due to a “recurrent Track Circuit drop”, a signalling issue, at Dwarka, which hindered the movement of trains. The snag according to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation was rectified at 12.10 pm, but it took time for normalcy to be restored as the snag had led to bunching of trains, a Metro official said. The severe delays came days after Delhi Metro services were temporarily hit due to repair work on January 3.
In the evening, a signaling identification issue affected the train services on the corridor. “Train services on Line 3 (Dwarka Sector-21to Vaishali and Noida City Centre) had minor bunching effect from 9 am to noon today due to signalling issue at locations approaching Dwarka,” an official statement from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation said. The track circuit was made normal at 12.10 pm,” it added.
Despite the rectification, it took a long time for Delhi Metro services on the route to return to normalcy. The corridor, which was already grappling with the technical snag, was hit by another snag later in the evening. “Train services on line 3/4 are affected today from 5.14 pm onwards due to signaling identification issue of trains. As a result, gradually all trains are given Ids afresh from the control centre one by one manually, which leads to minor bunching of trains thus consequent delay,” a Delhi Metro spokesperson said. Elaborating on the nature of the snag, the spokesperson said that due to the snag the view and control of the trains is lost by the Operations Control Centre when there is tripping of signaling server. Though the problem was rectified, the effect remained till late in the evening. Huge crowds of passengers had gathered at the stations in the evening as the trains were taking excruciatingly long to reach the stations. “Usually it takes me around 25 minutes to reach Rajiv Chowk from Mayur Vihar Phase-1 station. On Wednesday, it took more than an hour to travel the same distance,” complained a commuter.
This is not the first time that Delhi Metro services have been affected due to technical glitches. On January 3, many commuters were left stranded due to issues in the overhead wiring between Pragati Maidan and Mandi House stations. Commuters were also inconvenienced on Christmas due to maintenance work between Indrapastha and Yamuna Bank stations.
