Fire in Kanjurmarg signal cabin halts Central Railway locals between Thane and Vikhroli

Central Railway's suburban services in Mumbai were badly disrupted on Monday, the first day of the week. Around 10 am, a major fault developed in the signal system on the Central Railway route. By 2 pm, the railway administration had still not been able to fix it. For the past five hours, movement on both the slow and fast lines in the up and down directions has been thoroughly disrupted.

The cause has been given as a fire in the signal cabin at Kanjurmarg. The fire shut down the entire signal system between Thane and Vikhroli. Earlier, at 10 am, trains had stopped because of a fault in the overhead wire between Mulund and Thane. After that, the signal cabin at Kanjurmarg caught fire, and all signals beyond Kanjurmarg station went off at once.

As soon as the signals failed, motormen had to stop the local trains where they were. Trains are now standing on the tracks one behind another, including long-distance express trains. When the trains did not move even after an hour or two, many passengers got down on the tracks and walked to the next station.

Replacing the cables there will take about three to four more hours. Services on Central Railway are therefore likely to return to normal only by night. Even if the signal system is restored sooner, the timetable of the local trains has already been thrown off. Heavy crowding is therefore feared at Central Railway stations during the evening rush.

A mega block had been held on the Central Railway route a day earlier. With such a major technical failure coming the very next day, questions are being raised about what the railway actually did during the mega block. Passengers, troubled by daily delays and technical glitches, are expressing considerable anger at the way Central Railway is run.