Passengers face inconvenience as local train services affected due to power outage

Mumbai: City’s lifeline, the suburban railways on Sunday came to a standstill after power outage due to massive voltage fluctuations in the grid supplying power. Movement of trains were stalled entirely between Churchgate and Andheri between 9:42 am and 10:44 am after two railway substations in Mahalaxmi and Bandra became defunct due to power tripping of a 220 KV transmission line on Mulund and Trombay. Senior officials informed, as many as 50 trains got cancelled and 140 trains got delayed on Sunday morning including the August Kranti Rajdhani Express.

The officials said that these electric substations in Bandra and Mahalaxmi feed power to the railway stations and control rooms which use electricity for controlling signals, panels and power grids, therefore the entire train movement got disrupted due to the power outage. These electric substations get their electricity from Tata Power Company.

Following the outage, railway officials extended power supply from the Jogeshwari substation and used it to restore electricity supply of the railway network between Andheri and Churchgate.

“We were able to restore connectivity in a phased manner. In the first phase connection between Mumbai Central and Ville Parle was restored around 10:40 am and in the second phase connection between Churchgate and Mumbai Central were restored and full-scale operation resumed by 10:44 am,” said the official.

“The main power returned around 10:53 am but by the time the trains started running on backup power supply extended from Jogeshwari,” said the official.

“During the outage, train movement between Andheri and Virar remained unaffected as the substations in Borivli, Vasai and Virar were working,” the official added.

Compared to WR, no major disruptions were reported in the Central Railways. Shivaji Sutar, spokesperson of Central Railways, said that railway movement stopped momentarily on the central and harbour line between 9:49-9:52 am.

Meanwhile common Mumbaikars faced severe inconvenience during this one hour. Knowing that there will be a mega block on Sunday in the central and harbour line between 10:55 am to 4:05 pm, commuters had left for their destination early in the morning. But due to this service disruption, many passengers failed to reach their destination and got stuck for several hours.

Knowing that there was no other option, many commuters started walking through the railway track as well. The commutters said that in that one hour the platforms became heavily crowded and there was a peak-hour rush as soon as service resumed.

Dadar being an intersecting station of Central and Western Line became severely congested. Subhash Gupta, a resident of Kurla who got stuck in Dadar Station for more than an hour said that there was pandemonium in that station.

“The announcement mikes and indicator screens were not working properly. All the passengers were confused. The train that was supposed to arrive in platform number 4, arrived in platform number 5. There was confusion everywhere and nobody from the railway authorities came to us and told us what the situation was,” he said. Gupta is also the chairperson of the Rail Yatri Parishad.

“Many of the commuters in the morning hours were daily wage workers and if they didn’t reach their destination for one day, they wouldn’t get their money. Therefore, they started to walk on the tracks risking their lives,” said Manish Datta, a commuter who got stuck at Mahalaxmi.

Another commuter, Sudhir Wakle who was supposed to attend a funeral of one of his extended family members in Goregaon also got stuck at Dadar railway station.

“Knowing that there is a mega block, I left home at 7 am from Karjat. But I got stuck at Dadar for more than an hour. I had no option but to board a fast train from Dadar as all the slow trains during that time got cancelled. I had to come back all the way again to Goregaon from Borivali and I was only able to reach my relative’s place later in the afternoon,” said a perturbed Wakle.

Piyush Yadav, a textile supplier, said that he was stuck in Santacruz for more than an hour and had to return home without going to work. “Sundays are important in our business as we supply goods to retailers from godown. I had to go back after waiting an hour because even after trains started operation, there was a heavy crowd and some of the trains were getting cancelled as well,” said Yadav.