Title - Garden halts WR

Mud from private Malad nursery disrupts 66 services.
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After the season’s first real downpour yesterday, an unusual technical fault hit suburban services on Western Railway (WR), disrupting morning peak hour services that saw 20 suburban services cancelled and 46 others delayed.

It is learnt from railway sources that the ‘track failure’ cited by the administration was caused after mud from a private nursery near Malad station clogged a drain that channelizes water away from the tracks in case of flooding. The incessant rainfall therefore resulted in water levels rising on the tracks, leading to track failure.   

A railway official, on condition of anonymity, said that when railway workers reached the spot, they found that the mud from a nearby private nursery had clogged the drain along with other matter.

The trouble began at 6.55am yesterday when a track failure was reported on the up slow line. The railway workers took at least two hours to clear the drain and the problem was rectified only at 9.20 am. This resulted in severe disruption of services and trains were reported to be running 20-25 minutes late.

Yogesh Sinha, a commuter from Virar, said that trains were late by at least 15 minutes and that he had to change several trains before he reached Churchgate. 

Sharat Chandrayan, Chief Public Relations Officer, Western Railway said that the track failure affected train services for about half an hour in the morning resulting in a few cancellations only. “There was water logging reported at Malad due to which trains were running late by five to ten minutes,” he said.