Mumbai: How your trash is leading to Cental Railway delays

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It's not just the Railway's incompetence that delays local trains in Mumbai, it's your fault too. At least according to a recent news report.

As per a report by Mumbai Mirror, a large part of the fault for the ‘technical faults' on the Western Railways is due to patrons who litter and place rocks on the tracks, especially at the switching points - which leads to point failures.

As per the official figures the Central Railways has had about 487 cases of point failures in the past few months (from January to July) this year. In a statement to Mumbai Mirror a CR officer said, "Of the 230 cases of 'external reasons', around 70 per cent cases were due to ballast (crushed stones on which tracks are laid) blocking track switching points. Another 10 per cent errors were due to plastic bottles and other garbage affecting the points."

The CR officials alleges that gauging by the number of rocks found wedged between tracks indicates that residents of that area are to blame.

A CR official said, "Most of these instances are reported near slums, it may not be intentional but their idea of fun ends up costing commuters precious time." He says that the youth of the area, who gather near the tracks in the evenings may be responsible for the point failures.

Mumbai Mirror reported that out of the 230 cases of point failures, 54 were in Kalyan, 19 at Thane, 15 in Wadala, 8 near Ambernath and Karjat. A CR motor man said that on an average one point failure delays about 12-15 trains during non-peak hours and the situation is worse during peak hours.

In the past week the CR has found a number of point failures due to ballast in the track gap.

There is also the problem of litter that is thrown from the bridges above the tracks that get stuck on Overhead Equipment n (OHE) and affect the running of trains. Officials said that litter such as banana peels to plastic wrappers are thrown from the bridges above the tracks and get stuck on the OHE. This is then cleared by turning off the power supply to the line, and the garbage is removed. A senior railway official says, the whole process takes about 30 minutes.