Rail fracture disrupts WR services

I caught a train from Dadar to go to Borivli, in the morning. The train was crawling after crossing Andheri and it was tightly packed.

A rail fracture between Goregaon and Malad station disrupted suburban Western Railway for over an hour during the peak morning hours on Friday.

The fracture occurred around 9 am in a Borivli-bound slow track and delayed suburban services by at least 30-40 minutes.

According to railway sources, around 30 services were cancelled and 100 delayed because of the disruption.

Over 35 lakh commuters travel daily on Western Railway every day which connects Churchgate with Dahanu. Railway sources claimed that this was the first rail fracture on WR. Officials claimed that fluctuation in temperature may have caused the crack.

To minimise the disruption, WR diverted services from the slow line to the fast line towards Borivali. “We had diverted suburban services on the line to the fast corridor to reduce inconvenience to passengers,” said Gajanan Mahatpurkar, spokesperson of WR.

“I caught a train from Dadar to go to Borivli, in the morning. The train was crawling after crossing Andheri and it was uncomfortable as the train was tightly packed,” said Sweta Jagtap, a home maker.

According to railway sources, the WR had last month conducted an ultrasonic flow detector test to find defects in the track but no cracks were detected.