Mumbai: 25 trains cancelled on Central Railway line due to signal failure

Thousands of Central Railway commuters were inconvenienced after a major signal failure at Ravli near King Circle at 5:25 pm left trains in the lurch.

According to Central Railway officials, certain people had collected garbage near signal location box and they set it on fire. "As a result, signal cables got burnt. A FIR has been lodged against unknown persons and investigation started" said a CR official.

By 9 pm, 25 full and 15 partial cancellations of trains were brought about by the incident. It is expected that a total number of cancellations (full & partial) shall reach 65 to 70 by the end of the day, said CR officials.

The signal failure at Ravli blocked the line towards CST for 71 minutes but after that train movement started albeit with paper authority, railway term for running trains manually.

"What we did to restore train movement was to clamp (bind together manually) points 113, 114 and 116. The signals S18, S19 and S24 went blank. S18 revived at 6:30 pm, S19 at 8:50 pm and S24 at 9 pm" said Amitabh Ojha, divisional railway manager CR.