Monorail train gets overloaded again, 50 passengers asked to deboard

The monorail authorities did not want a repeat of Tuesday’s two incidents, which highlighted a failure in crowd management.

Mumbai: Less than 48 hours after 1,148 passengers had to be rescued when two overcrowded monorail trains came to a halt on elevated tracks between stations on a day of torrential rain, another train got overloaded on Thursday morning. This time, however, the pilot immediately flagged the overloading when the train was at the Acharya Atre station. The authorities had to then only get 50 passengers to deboard at the station to keep the rail network operational.

Mumbai, India. August 21, 2025: In August 2025, passengers trapped in the Monorail at Mysore Colony and Wadala experienced suffocation inside the coaches. After three hours, the Mumbai Fire Brigade successfully rescued 1,148 passengers from two monorail trains. Following this incident, the MMRDA initiated the replacement of the Monorail window glass at the Wadala Depot. Mumbai, India. August 21, 2025. (Photo by Raju Shinde/HT Photo) (Raju Shinde)

The incident occurred during the morning rush hour at 9.24 AM, when the monorail train heading towards Sant Ghadge Maharaj Chowk (Jacob Circle) entered Acharya Atre Station, officials said. Once passengers deboarded and boarded, the pilot’s dashboard flashed the train’s weight as 107 tonnes. Each four-car monorail train’s maximum capacity is 104 tonnes, including the weight of 562 people.

“Around 50 passengers were requested to get off the overloaded monorail,” said an official, requesting anonymity. However, the passengers standing near the doors refused to deboard, leading to a tense situation. It took 15 minutes for the monorail staff to convince a few dozen commuters to deboard to bring the load on the train within acceptable limits. Until then, the station manager, staff and the monorail pilot did not permit the train to proceed towards its destination.

“It was only when the total load got reduced to 102 tonnes that the train moved ahead. But all of this took 15 long minutes due to initial resistance. Passengers had to be explained that they might get stranded mid-section, which none of us want,” the official said.

The monorail authorities did not want a repeat of Tuesday’s two incidents, which highlighted a failure in crowd management. Back then, the control centre was supposed to direct the station masters to keep a check on the crowd. However, a surge in commuter demand on a day when Central Railway’s Harbour Line services were suspended due to heavy rainfall overwhelmed the monorail network.

Following the two incidents, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and its arm, the Maha Mumbai Metro Operational Corporation Limited (MMMOCL), which operates and maintains the monorail, discussed and finalised standard operating procedures for instances of overloading on Wednesday, officials said.

Among the immediate steps being taken are regulating passenger load to ensure the train’s capacity is not exceeded, deploying additional staff, including security personnel and a trained technician inside the train to tackle any issues that may arise, labelling emergency windows for easy identification, adding prominent signage, and conducting comprehensive safety inspections of the entire monorail fleet.

“We did not take hours or days to implement short-term measures, and Thursday morning’s development reflects that,” said an MMMOCL official.

The long-term measures include introducing 10 new rakes, seven of which are stationed at the Wadala monorail depot, into service once trials and certifications are through.