Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line hit by eight-hour snag, longest in recent months

“To avoid any inconvenience to passengers, announcements were also being made at the stations and inside the trains on Magenta Line, besides advising to use alternate routes/lines, if required,” the DMRC spokesperson said. “With continued efforts of the signalling team, failure has been rectified and normal services were restored at 6 pm,” the spokesperson added.

Metro trains require a signal to go from one point to another. In the absence of signalling or malfunctioning of the system, the trains operate in restricted mode with a speed of around 25 kmph to avoid any kind of incident. This also leads to train bunching — trains getting stuck behind one another.

Sources said that the resolution took a long time as trains were operational on the section during the entire time.

Many passengers took to social media to complain about being stuck inside trains and massive crowding at metro stations. “I have been sitting inside the Metro for the last 50 minutes now. How long will this take?” asked a commuter on X, adding, “If you are aware about the problem then you should’ve announced it at the origin station only.”

“There is no proper information about the delay. Should have informed the issue will take 2-3 hours time. I have-been waiting for about 35-40 minutes in the Metro to move from Sukhdev Vihar, but the train didn’t move. Similarly, we waited for about 20-25 minutes at the Botanical Garden,” another user wrote.

Magenta Line runs between Majlis Park in North Delhi, looping through crowded West Delhi neighbourhoods such as Janakpuri and Tilak Nagar, and all the way to Botanical Garden in Noida. It is currently operational over two stretches totalling over 50 km. After planned expansions, it will become the longest corridor in the Delhi Metro network at 88 km.

According to data from last year, it is responsible for close to 6 lakh passenger trips or slightly more than 8% of the daily traffic handled by the DMRC network.