A technical snag was once again reported on the Delhi Metro’s Red Line on Monday morning, leaving scores of daily commuters stranded for at least 45 minutes. The Red Line connects Rithala in Delhi to Shaheed Sthal in Ghaziabad.
This is not the first time the Delhi metro has faced the glitches on its line. In the last one month, six cases of technical snags have been reported on metro’s Blue, Yellow and Red lines.
According to Delhi Metro officials, there have been six instances wherein Metro services were impacted ranging from few minutes to couple of hours.
In three minor incidences, the services were delayed for few minutes on a very limited section to undertake the troubleshooting of the impacted train or signaling system, which is a normal procedure in such a vast technical set up which keeps providing safe, reliable and punctual Metro services for most part of the day throughout the year.
In remaining three incidents, two on the Blue Line and one on the Yellow Line, the services were affected for about one to two hours. “None of these incidences were result of a technical failure,” claimed official.
However, the Delhi Metro officials also said that these incidents cause due to external factors resulting into breakdown of a component of Over Head Equipment (OHE) like a bird caught in between charged wires or some foreign materials such as cable, kite maanjha strings etc. being dropped by birds or flown through windstorm etc. hitting the exposed OHE and causing flashing incidents.
“Safety of the passengers is always our priority. In a system where train services are available every 3-5 minutes during peak hours, to undertake any immediate repair work on the affected section requires utmost precision and mobilization of maintenance teams from the nearest depot,” he said.
“Before undertaking such activity, train movement on both sides has to be stopped so that passengers on the affected (mid-section) train, if any are safely taken to the nearest station and this exercise can only take place effectively and swiftly with the passengers’ cooperation otherwise it prolongs the effective take up of repair work by the maintenance team,” he stated.
While informing about the measures being taken by the Delhi metro to avoid these kind of incidents, Anuj Dayal, a senior DMRC official said that they have plans to install 10,000 bird spikes across the network covering 5000 bird prone location or points. Out of these, 1000 locations are on yellow and 2000 on blue line
“30000 more spikes are planned to be installed covering 12000 more locations covering additional 3500 locations on Blue Line and 2000 on Yellow Line,” he said.
“Implementation and upgradation of virtual signaling on Blue Line and Violet Line to provide uninterrupted services on major section of a Line during any disruption on some of its section,” he told.
“The copper split pins on the OHE wires which were in practice before are being replaced with stainless still pins to ensure more durability of the electrical system,” he said.
“To increase the technical compatibility between Live Wire and Earth Wire, additional insulators are being installed at around 1250 locations.
Already 200 have been installed on the Blue and Yellow Lines so far out of total 450 and 250 identified respectively,” he said.
“To improve the present short loop operations of trains during failure, DMRC has also installed 26 additional OHE switching locations in Line-1, Line-2 and Line-3, 4 where modification in traction system (power supply) can provide better short looping and technical failure management,” Dayal said.
“Out of these, nine locations are on Blue line, 11 on Yellow and six on the Red Line have been identified and upgradation has been done. This also had helped in reducing the impact zone of failure in the recent times,” he added.
