Few days back mayhem western railway witnessed mayhem as ab empty coach train moved out of the Lower Parel workshop, to cross the track and switch to the stabling line via the Virar bound slow track and derailed near the cross over and turned over to disrupt the traffic on the Western Railway. Nearly 100 services were cancelled and over 200 services were delayed in the mayhem. Signal failure had delayed train services on Harbour line, Andheri, Goregaon and Jogeshwari stations. In all it was total chaos as commuters had to face severe inconvenience during peak hours. A special committee must be appointed to stop such mishaps on regular basis. To add to the misery of delays, a slab beneath a footover bridge constructed over a drain caved in and the commuters in the busy place leading to platform number one fell into a 2 ft deep gutter water outside Vasai railway station. Railways audit is the need of the hour to make sure such busy spots are safe for regular flow of commuters on an ongoing basis to avert such serious mishaps.
S. Abhishek Ramaswamy
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
