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Mumbai: Rains fail to dampen railway machinery, services back on track within hours

Rail authorities attribute it to no technical snag in trains despite being marooned on submerged tracks for hours.

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Though heavy rains brought city's suburban railway on its knees on Wednesday, it was only a matter of hours before it got back on its feet. Fewer local trains were stranded despite being hit by almost 500mm rains in 36 hours. Rail authorities attribute it to no technical snag in trains despite being marooned on submerged tracks for hours.

"Rains could not throw railway machinery out of gear. Thus, we managed to get most of the rakes back on tracks with ease on Thursday," said a Central Railway (CR) official condition of anonymity.

Wednesday night was a busy one for rail staff working at car sheds on both CR and WR. According to sources, every train was inspected immediately after its arrival in the car shed. They even worked night shifts to carry out inspection of the rakes stranded on waterlogged tracks.

It was a major relief for commuters who were apprehensive of disruption in services on Thursday. "After rains disrupted operations for hours on Wednesday, we were apprehensive about its punctuality on Thursday. However, it's quite an achievement that both CR and WR managed to restore operations with little damage," said Subhash Gupta, president of Rail Yatri Parishad.

In early August, waterlogged tracks in wake of heavy downpour disrupted operations on CR for more than 46 hours.

On Thursday, Central and Western Railways had a meeting on factors that led to disruption in services despite no technical snag.

Flooding of state-of-the-art Virar car shed where trains are parked and maintained might be obe of the reasons, said an official from WR. The situation continued to remain grim even on Thursday despite no rains. "This car shed has been built in a low lying area. Thus, it was waterlogged in the wake of heavy downpour making it difficult to park trains," said the official on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, at the meeting, these issues on waterlogging were discussed. After Mithi river overflowed, water crossed danger levels at Sion, Chunabhatti, and Kurla leading to disruption in services. However, the trouble was more prominent at Kanjurmarg and Vikhroli which got flooded due to construction work and rampant dumping of debris near tracks, said senior CR officials. The main line on CSMT-Thane was shut for almost 17 hours, while the CSMT-Andheri/Panvel Harbour line opened after over 14 hours.

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