MUMBAI, APRIL 29: Suburban services of the Western Railway were seriously affected for almost throughout the day today when a sub station that supplies power to local trains got burnt at Andheri.According to WR spokesman, Vinod Asthana, the circuit breakers in the sub station got tripped and all the four lines got blocked and therefore no trains could be run from 9.20 pm. As a sequel to this, even the signalling equipment in a junction box at Andheri got burnt and this further aggravated the situation and the entire section between Bandra and Borivali was affected, and there were no services for almost two hours between these stations, he said.Following this, the section was isolated and power was restored at around 11.15 am and the services were restarted, but the movement of the trains was slow because the signalling system was still affected, he said. After much efforts, the system could be restored around 2 pm and the services improved after this, he added. However, today being Saturday, there was not much crowd at the railway stations and there was no untoward incident at any place, he said.However, it is not clear what led to the tripping of the circuit breakers and this is still being investigated, the spokesman said. At the same time, the signalling cables will have to be replaced and this will be done during the night, and the power cables will also be replaced, he said. Services will be completely normal by tomorrow morning, he added.However, lakhs of commuters had a harrowing time during the day when they boarded the trains from various stations only to be stranded between Malad and Goregaon.According to R B Virdi, a resident of Mira Road, she got into the train at 9.30 am and after getting stranded near Goregaon for more than one hour, she decided to return home. Some commuters, however decided to brave it out, and got into buses and autorickshaws, which further got stuck in traffic jams. It was no better at the railway stations, where commuters had to raid stalls for drinking water and snacks to endure the heat.Students also complained that they could not reach their exam centres on time and have requested the university to allow them to appear for a re-examination. According to Dhananjay Aditya, a law student, he was to reach MD College at Parel for his exams, and he finally could not make it on time and had to miss the paper. Several other students like him also could not reach the centre on time and they have decided to approach the authorities so that they can reappear for the exams, he added.
