Bad day for Mumbai's Central commuters as technical faults hit services

Thousands of commuters traveling on Mumbai's Central line were stranded on Wednesday after two back-to-back incidents of technical failure took place. The Kalyan-Thane line was severely affected after two trains were stranded at different locations along the stretch, both going to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST).

The first incident occurred at Dombivali at around 6.40 a.m. when an Ambernath-CST slow train was stranded after the pantograph of the train got entangled with the overhead cables.

While the railway authorities were fixing the damaged pantograph, all the slow trains were diverted on to the fast line between Kalyan and Thane, which led to trains not halting at Thakurli, Kopar, Diva, Mumbra and Kalwa stations. "The commuters at Mumbra and Kalwa stations had to go further north to catch a fast train," a CR official said.

Commuters stranded between Kalyan and Thane.u00a0

The authorities brought in an engine to remove the stranded suburban train from the tracks. Several trains had to be cancelled and other trains were running late by 15 minutes due to the incident.

However, the situation worsened after the pantograph of another train, a Kalyan-CST slow one, got entangled with the overhead wires between Mumbra and Kalwa at around 9.05 a.m.

Railway officials have suspended an engineer for the incidents.

Around 60 services were cancelled due to the two technical failures. "We will be carrying out special block for repair work at Dombivali tonight (night of October 10)," said a senior CR official.