Day after inauguration, glitch stops Mumbai Monorail

The train which was going towards Chembur was forced to stop at Wadala depot after a cable entangled its front.

A day after the much-delayed 11.28 kilometre second phase of the Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle monorail network was inaugurated, a glitch stopped the Mumbai Monorail’s run at Wadala Depot on Monday.

The Mumbai Monorail has a network length of about 20 km.(Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

The train, which was going towards Chembur, stopped at Wadala depot at 12.25 pm after a cable entangled its front.

All passengers were evacuated from the train. An official present at the spot said that the authority will get another train for the passengers to move forward. “The train will be sent for repairs and brought back,” the official said.

Sudhakar Mishra, a resident of Wadala who works at MTNL’s Chembur office said, “I would have probably reached office by now if I had walked. I have already waited 30 minutes for the train and this technical snag has delayed it further.”

The train was the same one that was used for the inaugural run by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis who flagged off the much-delayed second phase of the monorail network. on Sunday evening

The country’s first monorail system has a route which is 19.54 km long. With the entire corridor operational, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which has executed the project, expects the ridership to touch around 1 lakh passengers a day. The monorail is also expected to make travel in the city easier.

MMRDA is also considering getting 10 new rakes in the next one-and-a-half years to increase the frequency of the trains to four minutes from the current 20 minutes.