Mumbai fog delays Central Railway services; commuters stage rail roko at Vasinad station

Commuters staged a rail roko at Vasind, a railway station on the outskirts of Mumbai that falls under the jurisdiction of the Central Railways. Vasind is on the Mumbai-CST to Kasara route and is the station before Asangaon.

At 7 am on Saturday, angry commuters staged the protests over services getting delayed for over 45 minutes. The railway police managed to disperse the crowd by 8.15am or so and rail traffic resumed by 8.22am.

The administration has blamed the dense fog for the delays. Sources said that the fog was so thick that visibility was less than 100 meters for the motormen manuerving these 270 meter long local trains.

"If technical failures weren't enough to hurt train services, now natural causes like fog are causing problems in train running. But in the end it is the common man who is suffering," said Lata Argade, a resident of Dombivali.

Since early morning when the trains first resumed, trains were running at slow speeds. People complained that between 6-7am barely two or three locals went by which were crowded as they were coming from Asangaon or Kasara stations. Moreover the commuters claimed that long distance trains were given first precedence over local trains.