Central, Western Railway services in Mumbai hit on Sunday

Suburban services on both the city’s railway lines were disrupted leading to a harrowing time for Sunday commuters.
While Western Railway (WR) services were affected after a suspected fire at Mira Road station, suburban trains lined up on the slow track one after the other between Vidyavihar and Mulund for hours due to a pre-planned mega block.

“There was no fire. A cloth and a piece of paper on the overhead wires led to sparking. It was a micro-mini incident and there were no disruptions and detentions,” chief WR spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan said. However, commuters complained there was a delay in Churchgate-bound trains till late afternoon. “On Sunday, we have less number of trains due to holiday timetable in place,” countered officials.

On Central Railway (CR), trains lined up between Vidyavihar and Mulund stations, with each train being detained at Vidyavihar for more than half an hour. Commuters were seen jumping on the tracks and walking. “There is a mega block every Sunday, but we have never seen such detentions. There were unusual delays and some planning seems to have gone awry,” said Sadashiv Kamath, who was detained in a train between Vikhroli and Ghatkopar for 45 minutes.

While CR public relations department refused to elaborate and maintained that everything was normal and that it was routine disruption due to the mega block, sources said that with the mega block between Vidyavihar and Byculla stations, each train waited for almost half an hour to crossover to the fast track at Vidyavihar, in the process detaining all the trains standing behind.