Mumbai local train update: Snags on WR and CR at same time lead to Monday mayhem

The crowd at Borivli station. Pic/Satej Shinde

Commuters faced severe disruptions on both Central and Western Railway lines on Monday. Delays, cancellations, and chaos at stations were reported throughout the day. While Western Railway resolved its issues by late afternoon, Central Railway continued to experience problems into the evening rush hour due to glitches in the new electronic interlocking system upgraded on Sunday. Central Railway's lack of communication left passengers unaware of the situation, unlike Western Railway, which provided timely updates through social media and other modes of transport like the Metro.

The new signalling system at CSMT is still stabilising, and technical teams are working to address the issues as they arise.

The crowd at CSMT railway station on Monday. Pics/Ashish Raje

"Our team of technical experts is continuously working to fix the faults, and soon all these issues will be resolved and local services will resume regularly," said a CR spokesperson.

"There were twin disruptions, one at Kopar-Diva and at CSMT. This means that they are testing a new system on a busy Monday? Are we commuters guinea pigs? Trains were more than 40-45 minutes late with no announcements and no alternatives," complained Sandesh Keer.

"This indicates a lack of thorough testing before deployment. All the trains were crawling, leading to huge delays and cancellations," added another commuter.

"There was absolutely no information about disruption anywhere, and we had to depend on hearsay as there was no clarity. We were inside the train, and they were not moving. At least if there would have been some kind of alert, we would have started looking for alternatives," expressed Ranjana Samje.

Shreyas Shinde

"The Railway's official app Yatri also failed to update about any disruption on CR. It just had commuters discussing randomly about delays of 35 to 40 minutes. What is the use of having such an app after spending so much public money," criticised another commuter, Dilip Sardesai.

WR cable snapped

The cable-cutting incident at around 2 am stranded hundreds of passengers at Borivli station in the morning. Suburban trains weren't operated from Borivli's platform numbers 1 and 2, leading to the cancellation of about 40 scheduled trains. Passengers were greatly inconvenienced.

Railway officials along with the linemen were working on technical errors at Borivli station on Monday. Pics/Satej Shinde

Prashik Kamble complained, "There were no announcements at Borivli platform numbers 1 and 2. The police staff were rude and didn't provide basic information."

Shreyas Shinde said, "The platforms were overcrowded, chaos ensued, and there was no information from the Railways until the disruptions appeared in the news."

Commuters at Borivli station

An anonymous passenger criticised, "Western Railways should have notified us about the problem at night, instead of waiting till morning. It felt like they wanted to harass us."

Neeraj Verma, Divisional Railway Manager of Western Railway, said, "The disruption occurred due to ongoing pre-monsoon preparations, leading to wire cutting during tunnelling work."

Commuters at CSMT station. Pic/Ashish Raje

The Western Railway spokesperson stated, "An additional 35 trains were operated during the disruption. The issue of cable cutting caused the signal failure, affecting trains from Borivli platform numbers 1 and 2. Train movement resumed at 12.05 hrs, but about 40 pairs of scheduled trains were cancelled."

Metro to rescue

In response to the overcrowding caused by the Western Railway delay, Metropolitan Commissioner Dr Sanjay Mukherjee swiftly instructed the addition of extra services. "We've increased the number of train sets on Metro Yellow Line 2A and Red Line 7 until the situation normalizes. Normally, 21 train sets operate during peak hours, but today (Monday) we have 24 in service," a spokesperson said.

Sunday
Day system was upgraded