For commuters, Western Railway’s dream is a nightmare

Commuters on Western Railway had to suffer on Monday because of the trial run of 15-car trains from Churchgate. The Sunday night block to upgrade Churchgate to accommodate 15-car trains miserably failed after local trains on the network, especially those entering Churchgate station, got massively delayed throughout the day.

The block period had to be extended for an hour and the work included changing of a crossover point and re-spacing a signal overnight. The platform was also extended in those few hours and that continued throughout the day inconveniencing passengers.

“It was a major goof-up. The changed track crossover point and signal led to problems with trains on platform number four being held up. Senior officials and workers were working on it throughout the day because of the haphazard management. To ease the pressure, fast trains were diverted to platforms one and two, but problems persisted,” a source said.

“WR was keen to finish the project before January-end for ‘internal’ reasons. The hurry led to inconvenience of 34 lakh commuters,” he added.

The changes in the track layout overnight further led to a speed restriction of 10kmph at the space, detaining and delaying trains further. A fast train had to be detained at least for 15-20 minutes before it could enter platform number four, others were diverted.

The worst part was that WR did not make any public announcements.

WR chief spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan denied this. “There was a signal failure in the morning and a trespassing death, which led to delays,” he said. He, however, admitted that the technical block got delayed by an hour.

The block was to carry out “developmental work” at the station from 7pm to 5am on the fast line. But it continued beyond the stipulated hours.