dna special: Monorail rolls, tyre falls

Tyres of Mumbai Monorail are rolling as well as falling. On Monday morning too one of its tyres fell down on the road, resulting in partially crippling the monorail services on the Wadala Depot-Chembur route.

In June this year, a tyre of Rolling Stock Train (RST) Number 11 had burst, after which its parts fell on the road below in Chembur. This train was then parked at Chembur Monorail Station for over a month as a maintenance team kept trying to figure out how to take the affected train back to the Wadala Car Depot.

Finally, the team managed to weld a "Dolly Wheel", or temporary wheel, in place of the missing tyre to roll it back to the depot. Another Monorail was brought to Chembur to tow it back into the maintenance pit. Around 5.30am on Monday, the train started from Chembur, and by the time it approached Bhakti Park just after 6am, the welding of the temporary wheel too came off and the tyre fell. Had the train been towed without the Dolly Wheel, it would have damaged the concrete guideway beam.

"This happened before passenger services started," said a source. Authorities then decided to shut passenger services in the Wadala Depot-Bharat Petroleum section. The remaining section of Bharat Petroleum-Chembur was operational.

The stranded train was moved away at 1.35pm after a spare Dolly Wheel was fixed and passenger services on the entire 8.93km Wadala Depot-Chembur route was restored at 2.08pm.

The affected RST 11 train is the latest in the fleet of ten Monorails currently in Mumbai. It was put on track to serve Mumbaikars only in May and within a month, technical problems started popping up.

In Mumbai, not all the ten trains are fit for passenger operations. The rolling stock agency based in Malaysia – Scomi Engineering – is yet to supply the remaining five Monorail trains as well as spare machinery. The spare equipment is needed to fix trains that are currently devoid of parts in order to keep other trains on the track.

Monorail's Malaysian track record

WHEEL FALL

In August 2002, Malaysian journalist David Chelliah suffered severed injuries after one of the wheels of a Monorail fell on him. The system is operated by KL Monorail and rolling stock supplied by Scomi Engineering.

TYRE BURST

On January 22, 2005, a pneumatic load tyre burst, causing the side wall panel to open and hit the side passenger seat, thereby injuring two passengers.

MONORAIL STALLED

In August 2012, a Monorail got stalled in Kuala Lumpur, resulting in 183 passengers getting trapped for an hour. A pregnant woman fainted due to non-functioning of the train's air-conditioning system and two others suffered minor injuries.

STALLED AGAIN

Again in August 2012, another breakdown occurred, stalling a train for around half an hour with 200 commuters on board

TYRE ON FIRE

In March 2015, one of the tyres of a Monorail coach caught fire. No casualties.