Rains lead to cancellation of 80 CR services, delay of 200 trains

Mumbai: On Wednesday, the Central Railways (CR) saw the cancelling of more than 80 of its services while around 200 services were delayed across its mainline, Harbour and CST-Andheri sections.

The Western Railways (WR) too were affected by waterlogging at Mahim as well as because of the sparks reported in the overhead wire at the Elphinstone road station. A tree too reportedly fell on the overhead wire between Mahalakshmi and Lower Parel stations.

A signal failure at Mahim between 4 am to 5 am too added to commuters’ woes. Services from Andheri to CST were hit.

An official said, “We saw around 15 trains getting cancelled in that hour itself, and this also affected the peak-hour services on that section.”

Services on the Panvel-CST line were shut for about half-an-hour due to soil erosion under the tracks at Mankhurd around 8.20 am. An official said, “Those 30 minutes on the Harbour line were the worst hit of the day and we could only recover the line from it by late evening.”

A two-hour long signal failure at Dombivali too added in paralysing the railway network further just as the CR was recovering from the disruption of services on Tuesday evening, where water logging and incessant rains had successfully created a havoc for the commuters and the authorities.

The official further added, “What happened at Dombivali between 4am and 6am was track down.

It is a little different from a complete signal failure. Here, the signal fluctuates, making the driver slow down to 30kmph and as a result the services are hit.”

Services between Kalyan and Karjat were hit from 11.30 am to 1.30 pm after the failure of the engine of a goods train. The WR saw delays up to 45 minutes later in the day.

Timeline of when and where the failure

• 4 am to 5 am — Water-logging at Mahim
• 4 am to 6 am — Signal track down at Dombivali hits services on slow line
• 8.20 am to 8.55 am — The soil and ballast under the tracks were washed out at Mankhurd
• 11.30 am to 1.30 pm — The engine of a goods train fails at Asangaon, cutting of North Mumbai
• 6.45 pm to 7.30 pm — Sparking of an overhead wire on the slow line near Elphinstone road station