The Thane region that includes Dombivli and Kalyan recorded an average rainfall of 95 mm on Monday.As parts of Mumbai and Thane reeled from a heavy downpour on Monday, throwing commuters off the rails during the morning peak hours, a journey that takes an hour and 40 minutes on the Central Railway (CR) was stretched to six hours with commuters stranded in an overcrowded train. On a day that commuters were expected to mark 25 years of the Dombivli-Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), Rekha Dedhia and her group of “train friends” suffered an ordeal like never before.
“We were waiting for a train at around 8 am at the Dombivli station. It arrived 20 minutes behind schedule. The train was packed when it arrived, but we managed to get inside. After the train left Dombivli, it halted every five minutes, and after that, it started crawling and took an hour and a half just to reach Thane,” said Dedhia. Thane is four stations away from Dombivli and the fast train that otherwise covers the journey of about 67 km from Dombivli to CSMT in 15 stops was diverted to a slow track on Monday.
The Thane region that includes Dombivli and Kalyan recorded an average rainfall of 95 mm on Monday. Dedhia, who works in a private firm at Nariman Point, said she took the same train at 8.15 am from Dombivli and was late to work thrice over the past month due to train delays. On Monday, however, after reaching work six hours behind schedule, her attendance could well be marked as half-day.
Another commuter who boarded the same train from Kalyan, Kavitha Ashok Patil (27), said, “The train halted repeatedly but there was no announcement, so we sat in a train that was just not moving.” Patil arrived at CSMT at around 2 pm. Dedhia said one of her train group members is diabetic and was standing for more than 2 hours 45 minutes. “She wanted to use the toilet but there was nowhere to go. When the train reached CSMT, she was almost about to faint when the rest of us helped her to the washroom,” she said.
