Western Railway services disrupted

Thousands of Western Railway commuters were stranded at stations and inside trains when an overhead cable and an insulator malfunctioned at Borivli.

Thousands of Western Railway commuters were stranded at stations and inside trains when an overhead cable and an insulator malfunctioned at Borivli.

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The technical snag clogged the down slow line bringing services to a partial standstill. The incident occurred at 12.15 pm on the slow track at Borivli, and affected trains arriving at Borivli, on the slow line and towards Virar.

All trains had to be diverted to the fast track after Borivli. “There was a problem with the material used in the overhead cable. We will conduct a check with the help of a special train,” said WR PRO, Nitin David.

The problem lasted until 2.30 pm, after which the cable was reconnected. Until that happened, commuters were seen reaching stations by walking on the tracks.

Nearly 20 trains were cancelled and no trains ran on platform seven at Borivli.

While commuters said trains were late by an hour, officials claimed they ran only 15 minutes behind schedule.

WR recently completed conversion of its line from 1500 volt DC to 25000 volt AC traction between Borivli and Virar.

Even the day after they did this on March 1, WR suffered problems with the earthing of these cables.