Harbour hit by track trouble thrice in Feb

Mumbai: As many as 35 services were cancelled after a track failure occurred coinciding with morning peak hours on the Harbour line. A rail-roko by agitated public also added to the woes of the commuter. Commuters on this corridor are have had a tough time in the recent past as this was the third failure this month. A number of them opined that the Harbour line is being neglected as result of which there have been recurrent failures.
“The Harbour line was disrupted between Vashi and Nerul from 7.50 am to 9.11 am due to point damage, point rod and tongue rail bend at Vashi,” said the CR spokesperson. During the affected period, suburban services ran between CST and Vashi and Panvel and Nerul.
The spokesperson added, “Public agitated at Panvel from 9.10 am to 9.35 am and at Nerul from 9.45 am to 9.55 am due to the disruption in suburban services.”
Nerul resident Rakesh Desai, who was stuck at Mankhurd for 30 minutes said, “Failures can happen but it has been happening quite regularly over the past few months on this section. The railways need to give more resources to Harbour line since it does not have a fast corridor.”
The disruption led to chaos of the roads too. Chembur resident Suresh Shetty said, “Lots of commuters took autorickhaws and buses to Kurla. As result, the main station road for blocked, forcing people to walk at least 2 km to the station.”
Devang Shah, a Panvel resident said, “The frequency of shuttle services between Panvel-Nerul was 30 minutes. This led to severe overcrowding, preventing me from going to work.”
A senior railway official said, “The problem got aggravated because of rail rokos at two places.”
Another railway official said, “Harbour line has far more curves compared to CRs main line or WR. As result, the wear and tear is on the higher side, leading to comparatively more failures on Harbour.”