Services came to a grinding halt due to 2 incidents of technical snag and cable infringement on day 2 of operations
On the second day of its operations after a 10 months long hiatus, Chembur-Wadala Monorail services were disrupted for around three hours on Sunday and passengers were stranded inside Monorail in two separate incidents bringing its services to a halt once again.
According to officials from Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), in one incident cable wire of local cable TV operator got tangled with Chembur Monorails' door. The fire brigade was called at around 2.45 pm to handle the situation.
"We got a call at around 2.45 pm, and after promptly reaching the spot, we cut the cable wire, and Monorail headed towards Chembur by 3.54 pm. No passenger evacuation was required." said an official from Mumbai Fire Brigade.
"Due to this incident, services were disrupted for almost two to three hours. The services on both Wadala and Chembur routes were suspended by 3 pm, and resumed at 5.40 pm, " said an MMRDA official.
The Malaysian operator Scomi Engineering has submitted a written complaint with the Chembur Police station over the entangling of a cable wire with Monorail on late Sunday evening. "However, a police officer from Chembur police station said, "We have only made a diary entry in the matter. No case has been registered yet."
In another incident at around 2.35 pm, due to a fault in automatic train protection system (ATP), emergency brakes got applied automatically due to which Monorail came to halt for around 10 minutes, said MMRDA officials.
"Normally ATP is activated when the pilot is overspeeding. In this case, it got activated due to a snag. the train was running at speed of 35kmph which is the operational speed limit, " the MMRDA official said.
According to MMRDA officials, they have a standard operating procedure (SOP) that will be followed to understand what went wrong.
The train was repaired by Sunday evening.The Monorail services between Chembur and Wadala got restarted on Saturday after its services were shut in November 2017 owing to an empty train catching fire. Post this, the services were suspended, and only restarted on Saturday when more than 8,000 passengers used it.
Ever since the Monorail services started in February 2014, it has been in news for technical glitches and passengers being stranded for several times. The construction contract of Mumbai Monorail was awarded in 2008 to Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Scomi Engineering, and the project has also come under the scanner of Comptroller Auditor and General of India (CAG) over irregularities.
NO END TO MISERY
2017
July: Monorail halted halfway into Chembur station due to power failure.
November: Monorail phase-1 services suspended due to Monorail catching fire.
2018
September 1: Monorail services resume after 10 months
September 2: A monorail train had to be stopped between Chembur and VN Purav Marg stations when cable TV wires got entangled and obstructed the train’s passage
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