Lack of maintenance of emergency crossovers on the suburban section of Central Railway (CR) is suspected to have caused derailment of a Karjat-Badlapur local on Sunday afternoon. While investigation into the incident is underway,railway officials said sudden use of emergency crossover is suspected to have caused the derailment. Crossovers are used by trains to switch from one track to the other. Six wheels of the first coach of a local from Karjat to Badlapur derailed while crossing platform no 2 at Badlapur station around 2.30 pm on Sunday. No one was reported injured. The wheels were put back on tracks around 6 pm. Eight services were cancelled due to the derailment. According to a senior railway official,the emergency crossover near the south end of Badlapur station is rarely used. Maintenance work to ensure that the crossover is fit for train movement was done 14 days back at Badlapur station, the official said. There are about 60 such emergency crossovers on the suburban section of CR which are used by trains during maintenance work. While maintenance of regular crossovers is done on a daily basis,emergency crossovers are not maintained at the same frequency due to their limited usage. When asked about the emergency crossovers,Mukesh Nigam,divisional railway manager,CR said,Authorities have been directed to revisit the maintenance schedule of these emergency crossovers. An inquiry is underway to determine the exact cause of this derailment.
