45 Western Railway trains cancelled during rush hour

Commuters at Dadar station on Thursday morning. Pic/Ashish Raje

Morning rush hour services on WR collapsed due to a technical snag on Thursday, leading to cancellation of 45 trains. Three long-distance trains were held up between 40 and 60 minutes, while six incoming trains were delayed by 35 to 90 minutes.

"Due to entangling of the pantograph with the overhead wires of Churchgate-Borivli at 10.28 am while entering Borivli on platform no. 8, train movement has been affected," Western Railway chief public relations officer Sumit Thakur said.

Four locals on the Churchgate-bound line and 3 locals on the Virar-bound line were held up. A tower wagon to fix the glitch was sent from Andheri at 10.55 am. Thakur said that the problem was resolved at 12.18 pm and traffic was restored with the first train passing at 12.26 pm.

Commuters lamented the lack of announcements and information. "Here all are waiting for a train for the last half hour on platform no. 8 but there is no announcement. Please let us know the status of this train," said train user Neha Solanki.

"Though there was disruption, there was no information on Borivli platforms 1 and 2! Besides, if not in such times, what's the use of a public addressing system??! Or is it only for announcing that we have done 100 crore vaccinations! Reaching new heights of neglecting commuters by not even announcing the incident! One absolutely did not know when the train will start! A friend informed, his Borivli-Churchgate train started after 40 minutes of scheduled time," tweeted Vinay Kumar.

WR officials said announcements were made about the problem and a tweet on the technical snag was put out at 11.09 am.