MUMBAI: Local trains services, which were disrupted by torrential rains, have become normal to a large extent, railway officials said today.
Trains were back on the tracks on the Central and Western lines this evening, bringing huge relief to lakhs of commuters who take them daily to reach their workplaces.
"We ran the first local between the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (in south Mumbai) and the Kalyan section (central line) at 7.24 am and kept them running at frequent intervals.
"We started services from the CSMT to Karjat at 8.30 am while Harbour line (CSMT-Panvel) services were resumed at 1.20 pm, and Fast Up (towards CSMT) services at 1.30 pm," said Chief PRO, Central Railway, Sunil Udasi.
By late evening, the entire suburban services were running quite normally, he said.
"Since most of the citizens preferred to remain indoors today, we did not find it much difficult to restore the train services," the chief PRO said.
Udasi said field staff and sectional officers were deployed in sufficient numbers in different water-logged sections to keep a round-the-clock watch on the water level.
Another CR official said they gave priority to trains leaving the CSMT so as to clear the rush of passengers stranded overnight in various offices in south Mumbai and other locations.
"We encountered some problems while resuming the services on the Harbour line, because few rakes had marooned and we had to shift them in the car shed. After we shifted them, the tracks were cleared and we could roll out the services smoothly," he said.
Western Railway services started running normally by late afternoon, a senior official said.
"We started our services from early morning today with a restricted speed at all the four lines, and by late afternoon, everything became quite normal," said WR Chief PRO Ravindar Bhakar.