Garland wire glitch delays Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle Monorail service

A majority of the commuters had come to the station for a joyride as Monday was a bank holiday on the occasion of Maha Shivratri. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

The Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle Monorail corridor was finally thrown open to commuters on Monday, but on the very first day of its operations a garland proved to be its undoing, delaying services for about 45 minutes. Commuters were stranded at the Wadala Monorail station after a wire or a thread used to tie a garland on the railings at the station allegedly got entangled with a train.

The Jacob Circle-bound Monorail suffered the glitch between 12.30 and 1 pm on Monday at the Wadala Monorail station. Passengers had to be asked to alight from the train and wait at the station. The train was immediately taken to the car depot.

While the exact reason for the issue is yet to be officially known, it was being said that one of the wires or a thread used to tie a garland on the railings at the station got entangled in the lower portion of a coach, leading to the snag. MMRDA officials claimed that the train was taken to the car depot, where the wire was removed after which the train was put back into service.

MMRDA said in a statement, "The decoration used for the inauguration of the Monorail created a bit of a hurdle. The train had to be moved into the depot for about 10 minutes to clear the strings that got entangled in the lower portion of the train and posed as an obstruction."

'Good experience'
As one of the four trains had to be taken out of operation, commuters had to wait for around 45 minutes to board another Monorail. Thankfully, a majority of the commuters had come to the station for a joyride because Monday was a bank holiday on the occasion of Maha Shivratri.

While travelling along the corridor, mid-day observed a lot of women and children praising MMRDA for starting the services as it not only saved them time but also proved to be a good experience.

A Wadala resident who travelled on the Monorail said, "The services are really helpful as I was able to reach Jacob Circle from Wadala in less than 30 minutes, against the 45 minutes to an hour that it otherwise takes via road. However, the lack of seating at the stations is a problem, which can cause inconvenience to the elderly."

Other snags
Apart from the dysfunctional coach, mid-day also observed during its visit that some automatic fare collection (AFC) system gates were not working, which might create chaos during peak hours on other days. At the Jacob Circle station, the AFC gate near the lift was not working due to a technical problem.

But for MMRDA, Day 1 proved to be successful. In a press release, it said that the Monorail ran 57 services in total along the entire corridor and attracted 27,619 commuters, bringing in R5,19,936 in ticket revenue until 10.15 pm.

Transport expert Jitendra Gupta expressed doubts over the Monorail, "We need to do a study to find out if there is any other country that has a Monorail track as long as ours. The world over, Monorail is used for short distances. Here, we are stressing out the system on such a long route. How will it work? If a brand new train is giving way on the first day, what can we expect when it becomes old? We are using the Monorail where there should have been a Metro."

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