Passengers suffer as snag-hit Metro crawls in Delhi
Passengers travelling on Delhi Metro’s Blue Line (Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali) went through a harrowing time on Friday as a technical snag slowed trains down on the line for the entire day.
Passengers travelling on Delhi Metro’s Blue Line (Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali) went through a harrowing time on Friday as a technical snag slowed trains down on the line for the entire day.
“I boarded the train at 11:30am from Vaishali and reached Barakhamba station only at 12:50 pm. The journey, which otherwise takes me 25 minutes, took me over an hour today. The train was stopping for more than a minute at every station,” said Abhik Kumar, a commuter.
According to officials, the delay prompted metro to bunch trains to ease the rush.
“Metro train services on Line 3/4 (Dwarka to Noida City Centre/Vaishali) were delayed due to track circuit drop (failure) near Rajendra Place metro station on the up line (going towards Dwarka). The fault was detected at 9:02am after which we ran trains at a restricted speed of 25 kilometres per hour between Rajendra Place and Patel Nagar metro stations. This led to bunching of trains on Line-3/4 causing minor delay of services on the line,” said a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation spokesperson.
There have been problems on the Dwarka line earlier also. But those problems mostly were due to fault in the overhead wires.
“Efforts were made to rectify the problem more than three times since the morning by allowing limited duration access to the tracks to our technical team without stopping service. We, however, later figured out that the problem needed detailed investigation for which access to the tracks was required for a longer duration. Hence, we decided to rectify it only after the revenue hours. Till then, services on entire line continued with minor delay. The control centre ensured constant monitoring at the officers level and ensured that the bunching of trains was not more than two to five minutes during peak hours,” the spokesperson added.