Thousands of Western Railway (WR) commuters had a harrowing time on Wednesday morning as a technical glitch in the signalling system at Goregaon led to a disruption in services for about an hour. According to WR officials, the glitch occurred at 7.02 a.m. and was rectified by 8.05 a.m.
According to railway officials, the signalling panel at Goregaon station went blank as the power supply was disrupted. A signalling panel controls all the signals and crossovers at a particular station or section. The impact of the failure at Goregaon was severe as it affected crucial crossovers, which allow trains to move from slow corridor to the fast corridor and vice versa.
At the time of the failure, six trains were stuck in mid-section between Goregaon and Malad, forcing several commuters to walk on the tracks to reach the nearest station. No services ran between Borivali and Andheri, with several trains being short-terminated at stations such as Dadar, Andheri and Borivali.
Ravinder Bhakar, chief public relations officer, WR, said, “Efforts were made to rectify the issue as soon as possible. But due to the bunching of trains, services were running delayed for a few hours.”
The disruption of services had a cascading effect on suburban system even after the fault was rectified. Trains ran around 15 to 30 minutes late on the fast and slow corridors of the WR and on the Harbour Line till Goregaon during the morning peak hours. In all, the WR had to cancel 50 services, and 159 services were delayed.
Commuters took to social media to vent their anger. Maggie D’abreo, who daily takes the 8:22 a.m. fast local from Vasai, said her train got cancelled and she couldn’t board the subsequent trains as they were crowded.
“All the trains coming from Virar were more crowded than usual. I finally boarded the 10:04 a.m. ladies special, which normally starts at Vasai, but was converted to a Virar local on Thursday. Trains were over 20 minutes late and all my colleagues, who took a train around 7 a.m. at Vasai, reached Dahisar by 8 a.m.,” she said.