Lifeline Crippled,Mumbai Crawls

Though announcements were being made at most stations,several commuters were caught unawares. Many had to travel for nearly five hours to reach their destinations. Some jumped on the tracks,while others stayed put,sharing lunch boxes with other commuters. Some even risked travelling on train tops,while some balanced themselves between two coaches with trains running packed.

Shashikant Shinde from Dombivli,who works in Mantralaya,spent six hours in the train before he reached CST. “I had to reach before the Assembly session started as I had to hand over papers to a minister. No announcement was being made at Dombivli station in the morning,” he said.

This is the fifth time this month that the equipment of CR has been damaged. On April 4,a snag in the signalling panel at Dadar resulted in 18 services being cancelled. On April 9,the overhead wire between Byculla and CST was damaged. Four days later,the signalling panel at Diva developed a snag,and on April 16,the pantograph of a Harbour line local got entangled with the overhead wire at Wadala.

On Wednesday,the CR could operate just about 56 per cent of its 1,578 suburban services till about 2 pm,but expected the services to touch 70 per cent by the end of the day. “At present,repair work is going on. It will take two-three days to be completed. Many signals on the Down slow line on Kurla-Vidyavihar section are now working. The extent of non-signalled stretch of tracks on the other three lines is less than one km,” a CR spokesman said.

The CR plans to run 85 per cent of its suburban services on Thursday and the time taken between Kurla and Vidyavihar is expected to be between 20 and 25 minutes,the spokesman said.

A three-member committee has been constituted to probe the incident and recommend remedial measures,a CR spokesman said. Sources said,prime facie,a surge in voltage may have sparked the fire and that the CR has suffered a loss of about Rs 25-30 crore.