An overhead wire entangled with the pantograph, delaying trains for more than three hours
Four days after the mega block carried out by the Central Railway at Belapur station, the Harbour line collapsed on Tuesday around 9.40 am. The services were hit owing to the shoddy job done by the CR over the last four days. Amid the Tuesday morning chaos, CR officials were busy hosting a delegation from Japan at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) to give them a first-hand experience of suburban train operations.
The train services on the Harbour line got affected after the pantograph of a Wadala-Panvel local train broke and soon after, the overhead cables (OHE) entangled with the equipment. The train services were unavailable on this stretch between Panvel-Nerul covering six railway stations from 9.40am to 1.02pm. The CR officials, however, claim that the Up line towards Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus was restored by 9.55am, but this did not make much difference as nearly 100 trains were cancelled and many were running late by 45 minutes.
Officially however the CR authorities stated that there were only 14 cancellations and 16 trains were delayed during this period. People were seen walking on tracks to reach the nearest station. Thousands took auto rickshaws and NMMT buses to Nerul railway station.
Such OHE breakdowns are a common occurrence in railways. In this case, the reason was not the weary rail network but the poor, shoddy job of CR officials while implementing the Rs 1,785-crore Seawoods-Uran new suburban corridor for which on December 24-25 it carried out a 13-hour mega block till 3 pm near Belapur.
When DNA tried to contact the General Manager of Central Railway, DK Sharma, he replied, "Sorry, I cannot talk right now."
48-HOUR BLOCK
In an attempt to cover up the shoddy job done at Belapur station for the Seawoods-Uran line, the CR has called for an emergency 48-hour block stopping all originating and terminating trains at Belapur from December 26-December 28. The work to fix the overhead wire will also affect services from Panvel to CSMT. to be affected.
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