Delay on Harbour as motor coaches of 2 trains fail

The Harbour line saw a delay in services by over half-an-hour towards Panvel as well as CST after the motor coaches of two trains failed on the line, shutting down the services and delaying trains by more than 40 minutes.

The first failure was seen in the morning when a retro-fitted rake heading from Belapur to CST came to a standstill when the coach broke down at Chunabhatti from 9.34 am to 9. 41 am and then again and then again at Cotton Green from 9.52 to 10. 05 am. This failure led to around four cancellations immediately and cascading delay of almost 40 to 45 minutes.

In the second incident two motor coaches of the recently transferred Seimens rake broke down while attempting to climb the incline between Masjid and Sandhurst Road stations, while on its way to Panvel. The incident occurred between 2.06 pm and 2.23 pm shutting down the services towards Vashi, Belapur and Panvel for at least half-an-hour.

The Harbour line has been seeing such technical issues since its conversion from Direct Current (DC) to Alternate Current (AC) since April 29. “The system is yet to stabilise on Harbour after the conversion to AC. The problem is that Harbour has a lot of elevated stations, which is even more than the mainline, so the engines are not as used to climbing on steep inclines as they should be before operating them on Harbour,” said an official on condition of anonymity. Around eight services were cancelled till late evening.