Commuters face tough time as downpour hits local train services

While Mumbai city was spared the chaos, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) was not that lucky as lakhs of people faced issues — from disruption in services on Central Railway to power cuts in several parts. According to Central Railway (CR) officials, 100 services were cancelled on the Main and Harbour lines

Mumbai: Heavy rain led to slowing down of suburban rail throwing normal life out of gear in Mumbai for most part of the Wednesday.

Thane, India - July, 19, 2023: after heavy rain As the local train is running late, there is a rush of commuters at the Thane railway station platform no 2 Ê, in Mumbai, India, on,Wednesday, July, 19, 2023. ( Praful Gangurde / HT Photo )

While Mumbai city was spared the chaos, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) was not that lucky as lakhs of people faced issues — from disruption in services on Central Railway to power cuts in several parts.

According to Central Railway (CR) officials, 100 services were cancelled on the Main and Harbour lines

The Mumbai-Pune rail route was affected as trains did not operate on the Ambernath-Badlapur section for almost seven hours.

Troubling trains

Since Wednesday morning, the suburban trains on the Main and Harbour lines of CR were affected. The first problem cropped up on the CSMT-Panvel Harbour line. There was a point failure at Panvel at around 9.40am that was set right at 10.05am. This, however, disrupted the train services on Belapur-Panvel section and gradually affected the timing of trains during the morning peak hours.

According to the commuters, the trains on the Harbour line were running late by 15 minutes for the first half of the day.

“Reaching the station was difficult as there was severe waterlogging. At the station, train services towards CSMT had stalled and nothing much could be done,” said Sudhakar Patangrao, resident of Badlapur and member of Badlapur Rail Passenger Association.

“What happened to all the pre-monsoon announcements made by the Central Railway?” asked Patangrao.

The rail officials said that once the failure was rectified, there was not much trouble on the Harbour and Trans harbour lines. But the real problem was brewing on the Main line on the Kalyan-Karjat route.

Around 10.30am, trains on Badlapur-Ambernath section were affected for a few minutes due to water ingress on rail lines. Trains were stopped but soon after, they were running again.

However, trains had to be stalled again on this section at 11.05am as, according to the CR officials, water started flowing in swiftly on this stretch due to overflowing of a tributary there close to Ulhas River.

“There was waterlogging of up to 7 inches on rail tracks in Ambernath-Badlapur section due to heavy rains. So as a safety precaution, we closed this section,” said Dr Shivraj Manaspure, chief PRO, CR.

“This was a new spot where there was waterlogging. When the civic body fails to prevent haphazard construction works, this is what is going to happen,” said a CR official.

“We were not prepared for waterlogging on the Badlapur-Ambernath stretch. We had placed high powered pumps and even kept rescue boats ready at Badlapur station keeping in mind the Mahalaxmi Express incident (in July 2019, 1,050 passengers were stranded for 17 hours near Vangani due to flooding of tracks),” added the official.

Badlapur-Ambernath areas saw rainfall of over 300 mm in 12 hours. According to the railway officials, the stretches between Karjat, Monkey Hill and Lonavala saw anywhere between 170-180 mm of rainfall.

By Wednesday evening, when the waterlogging started to recede and had touched three inches, the CR authorities resumed services.

By 6pm, both up and down lines on this Ambernath-Badlapur stretch were opened for trains, which were allowed to run at speeds of 10 kmph.

However, another problem struck around 2.40 pm when due to waterlogging, several points had failed at Kalyan station which led to disruption of trains going towards Kasara, said sources.

“We had to clamp the points and allow only a few trains to ply. The point failures were rectified by 5.25pm,” said another CR official.

Announcements were made about disruption in train services towards Kalyan. Throughout the day, trains were running late by 30-35 minutes.

According to CR officials, 100 services were cancelled on the Main and Harbour lines. The CR cancelled at least eight Mumbai-Pune trains running from either city while many trains were diverted via Diva-Panvel route instead of Kalyan.

Road Woes

The Mumbai traffic police said that Wednesday’s rainfall caused traffic problems across the city, “there were no traffic jams reported but traffic was reported to be slow,” said a police officer from Mumbai Traffic Police.

The places were motorists faced a hard time were at Bandra Talao on SV Road, DN Road opposite the CSMT, Western Express Highway near the Khar Subway, Powai, Shankarwadi in Jogeshwari, LBS Marg from Bhandup to Ghatkopar, outside Nanavati Hospital in Santacruz SCLR Santacruz -Chembur Link Road towards WEH, Tagore Nagar signal towards Eastern Express Highway.

Due to the breakdown of a vehicle in Dadar, traffic moved at a snail’s pace from Matunga to Dadar.

Due to waterlogging, vehicles were reported to be travelling on the wrong side of the road in several places, including Sarvodaya signal below Metro bridge in Ghatkopar.

The traffic police officers said that their entire force was on the roads to manage traffic and ensure that motorists did not face further delays.

“Waterlogging was the main reason for traffic congestion,” said a traffic police officer.