In a double whammy for Mumbai suburban railway commuters, the Central Railway on Friday morning cancelled as many as 46 train services — either fully or partially, after a delay in the operation of services triggered a spontaneous “rail roko” by commuters at Badlapur, while the services on the Western Railway remained disrupted for more than an hour later in the evening owing to a power failure.
The day began with hundreds of irate commuters squatting on the tracks and staging a “rail roko” at Badlapur on the Central Railway at 5.25 am. The commuters blocked movement of trains, after a Karjat-CST local arrived at Badlapur station 20 minutes behind owing to a technical snag at level Crossing Gate no.26 between Karjat and Bhivpuri Road stations.
The suburban train services between Ambernath and Karjat were disrupted for more than five hours.
Things came to such a pass at one stage that Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu took to twitter and sought to calm down the angry commuters. He directed the CR officers, including CR General Manager and Divisional Railway Manager, to listen to the agitating commuters’ demands.
“GM, DRM, officers directed early morning to help passengers in #Badlapur, sort out their problems. Requesting all not to agitate, all steps taken,” Prabhu tweeted.
The services were finally restored at 10.55 hrs. Following the agitation, the CR authorities cancelled 34 services fully and 12 services partially.
The protests by the commuters not only affected the services on the stretch between Ambernath and Karjat, but also had a cascading effect on the arrivals and departure schedule of long-distances at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), lokmanya Tilak Terminus (lTT) and Dadar terminus. Badlapur is located 60 km from Mumbai-CST. Following th agitation, the services on the Kalyan-CST services were also affected.
Following the disruption in services, the Central Railway operated 30 special trains between Ambernath and CST, Kalyan, Vangani and Karjat, Karjat and Khopoli to clear the stranded crowds of passengers.
In an effort to ensure against the agitation taking a violent turn, the Thane Police, GRP and RPF personnel rushed to Badlapur to pacify the commuters who were getting increasingly restive with every passing hour.
Following the agitation, the Central Railway authorities held up and regulated at least four long-distance CST-bound trains, while they diverted two other trains Karjat-Panvel-Diva stations. The authorities regulated en route 18520 lTT-Visakhapatnam Express and 11007 CST-Pune Deccan Express and re-scheduled 11301 CST-KSR Bengaluru Udyan Express, which leaves Mumbai at 08.05 hrs, to 14.20 hrs.
later in the evening, utter chaos prevailed at the Churchgate station, the Western Railway’s suburban terminus and some other railway stations, where thousands of home-bound commuters remained strained after an over-head wire snapped at Marine lines station. The snapping of overhead wires resulted in the disruption in the power supply to other overhead wires. The technical snag threw out of gear services on the Western Railway network. No services operated on all the four tracks for more than an hour. “The services on both the affected lines were restored at 18.30 hours and all lines are now normal,” a Western Railway spokesperson said later in the evening.