CR commuters bear the brunt

Kalwa railway station on Thursday

Suburban services on the Western and Central Railway were affected by the incessant rains that lashed the city, accompanied by high tides, during the last 24 hours. While WR services were delayed by 15 to 20 minutes with a few cancellations, Central Railway services suffered majorly due to the 'unprecedented heavy rainfall' in Thane and Kalyan. About 150 services on the main line of CR had to be cancelled and the services on main line were running at an average delay of about 45 minutes. "There was considerable water logging in Kalwa city and Kalyan city which also led to accumulation of water on railway tracks which adversely affected the train services. According to information received from Indian Meteorological Department, the rainfall received at Kalyan was 445mm. Similarly, during the last 24 hrs., Thane received more than 200 mm rainfall," a senior official said. "While the CR had made all out efforts to clean drains in railway/track territory and vulnerable locations were manned round the clock, the accumulation of water in city area near Kalwa station resulted in water logging on the track and affected train services. This problem was further compounded due to the high tide of 4.40 metres at 11.55am," he added. "As a result of water logging there were many signal failures in the Kalyan area and trains had to be run at a restricted speed of 15 kmph by clamping and locking the routes manually. About 11 trains were stranded between Thane and Diva due to water logging at Kalwa on local (slow) corridor," he explained. "With the help of railway staff available at site, all the commuters from these trains were safely evacuated and these trains were taken to various maintenance sites for urgent attention. Services on this section have resumed at 1.00pm," he added. Adequate services were, however, maintained on the fast corridor. Commuters of Kasara-Kalyan and Karjat-Kalyan sections were permitted to travel on the Mail/Express trains, which were given special halts at intermediate stations for the purpose. Services on the Harbour line towards Panvel as well as Bandra/Andheri and trans- harbour line ran as per schedule.