Technical glitch delays WR local trains during rush hours
Travel during the morning peak hours became miserable as trains were delayed by 15-20 minutes
Services on the Western Railway (WR) were severely affected on Monday morning due to a technical glitch. An overhead cable snapped between Dahisar and Borivali at around 5.50 am, which led to a delay of 15-20 minutes during peak hours. Some services were delayed by half an hour, especially the VirarChurchgate fast line.
One could see local trains stalled one behind the other for a couple of hours, with thousands of commuters stranded in trains and on platforms. The WR authorities were struggling to repair the OHE (overhead equipment) cables and succeeded in sorting out the problem after over 90 minutes.
“Our engineers went to the site to rectify the problem. The OHE cables that supply power to local trains snapped and we managed to repair them by 7.23 am. We had to cancel 30 train services,” said a WR official.
A majority of passengers, including women, were seen jumping down on the tracks and walking to the nearest station Dahisar or Borivali stations and then waiting for the resumption of services. People complained that not only the Up fast line was affected due to technical failure, the other three lines on slow and fast corridors were also affected due to bunching.
Those who walked towards Dahisar and Borivali stations went to the nearest bus stops to reach their destinations. Some took slow trains, starting from Borivali. “The trains from Borivali were also running late. Thankfully, we managed to enter the local,” said Hiren Jain, a resident of Dahisar. Trains were affected during the day as well and the delays continued for five to 10 minutes.
Common reasons for technical glitches include OHE failure, in case the cable snaps or an external object falls on the 25000 volt Alternating Current line which disrupts supply.
At times, even the pantograph above the roof of a local train gets entangled with the OHE cables. Signalling failures happen in case of theft of signal cables.