Mumbai’s harbour line trains run late for second day in a row

Services hit, huge crowds at stations and in trains after maintenance work between Belapur and Seawoods ends 90 minutes late on Thursday morning

Another day started with trouble for Mumbai commuters who use the Central Railway’s harbour line trains. After track maintenance disrupted services on Wednesday, on Thursday morning , commuters once again had to suffer delays, cancellations, and overcrowding.

Central Railway apologised to commuters on the harbour line for the delay on Thursday morning. (HT File Photo / For representational purpose.)

Passengers complained that trains were running at least 30 minutes late during the morning rush hour. By 10.30am, services were slowly limping back to normalcy.

Trains were delayed as a special maintenance block between Belapur and Seawoods stations ended more than 90 minutes late. The maintenance work started on Wednesday night, but instead of ending at the scheduled 3.30am, it concluded only at 5.10am, affecting services on the line.

The speed restriction imposed by railway authorities has worsened the situation as trains cannot make up for lost time.

“Why do the railways take commuters for granted? Why did it not inform commuters in advance about the maintenance block,”asked Avinash Chaudhari, a resident of Koparkhairane.

On Wednesday too, harbour line services were hit, with trains operating around 20 minutes behind schedule, because of engineering maintenance work between Vashi and Mankhurd stations.

CR’s divisional railway manager SK Jain apologised to commuters on social media for the delays. “Sorry for the inconvenience. Eng. block between Belapur - Seawood given 00:50 Hrs. to 03:30 Hrs. block cancelled at 05:10 Hrs. cause UP/DN local running late and some local cancelled,” he tweeted.