Rain, mega block badly hit CR services

Water-logging on the railway tracks, a five-hour mega block and technical snags made commute a nightmare for those who had to travel by the main and harbour lines on Central Railway (CR) on Sunday.

Water-logging on the railway tracks, a five-hour mega block and technical snags made commute a nightmare for those who had to travel by the main and harbour lines on Central Railway (CR) on Sunday.

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The heavy downpour since Saturday night flooded tracks in low-lying spots between

Kurla and Wadala and Kurla and Sion on the harbour and central lines respectively. The tracks near Chunabhatti and GTB Nagar were also completely submerged.

To make matters worse, there was signal failure at Reay Road. "Because of continuous heavy rain since early morning and signal failure at Reay Road, coupled with water-logging between Kurla and Wadala from 5.19am, harbour services are running five to 10 minutes behind schedule," said CR spokesperson. In reality, all CR services were running 15 to 20 minutes late.

Western Railway services, however, remained undisrupted, though there was heavy rain in the western suburbs too.

The five-hour mega block on all suburban lines - on the slow corridor between Churchgate and Mumbai Central; between Matunga and Mulund; between Mankhurd and Nerul – worsened the problem on the main line as during that time an Ambarnath-bound train developed a technical snag at Ghatkoper station around 12.30pm . This affected services further and trains were running 20 to 25 minutes late after that.

"It took me more than an hour to reach Matunga from Uran phata on Sion-Panvel highway by BEST bus," said Shantaram Bangar, a resident of Kharghar, who could not travel by train as there were no services to Navi Mumbai for five hours because of the mega block.