RailEnquiry

MUMBAI: Central Railway (CR) commuters were inconvenienced for the second time on Sunday, the Day-II of the monsoon, with 21 services being cancelled and trains running over 45 minutes late. Pointing out that trains stopped for a long time at Kurla and Vidyavihar stations due to waterlogging, commuter activists said the railway authorities do not seem ready to handle heavy showers. Western Railway (WR) commuters, too, had to put up with delays."The railway authorities have carried out shoddy work and are ill-prepared for the rains," said commuter rights activist Madhu Kotian, who travelled on CR and WR trains on Sunday to assess the situation on the ground."My CR train was running 45 minutes behind schedule. It took me one-and-a-half hours to travel from Nahur to Dadar, which is normally a 40-minute journey," said Kotian, who is also the president of Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh. "The train stopped on four occasions and at Vidyavihar. It was evident that the nullahs had not been cleaned."The indicators at Borivli station were not working on certain platforms and announcements made through the public address system were barely audible, Kotian said. "Same was the case at a few other WR and CR stations. Trains were being cancelled abruptly at Dadar station. I witnessed five such cancellations."Several long-distance trains were also delayed."Another major problem was that water from civic drains running parallel to railway premises was spilling onto tracks," said Shailesh Goyal, former member of the National Railway Users' Consultative Council. "The railways should coordinate better with the BMC to get such drains cleaned."CR spokesperson A K Singh said services were running 45 minutes late due to "signal problem at Kalyan, Thane, Kanjurmarg and Vidyavihar because of continuous rain". WR chief spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan said services ran as per schedule except for a few minutes during the mega block.