Signal snag hits thousands of Metro commuters

New Delhi, March 29 (IANS) On a day when restrictions were imposed on several roads in Delhi due to the BRICS summit, thousands of Metro commuters in the national capital were left stranded for over six hours from Thursday morning till late afternoon due to a signalling defect. The fault was rectified after six hours, a Metro official said.

Trains on the busy Blue Line, which connects Noida and Ghaziabad with Dwarka in west Delhi -- consisting of Line 3 (from Noida City Centre to Dwarka Sector 21) and Line 4 (from Yamuna Bank to Vaishali) -- were delayed from 8.30 a.m. and services were operating at restricted speed.

"The signalling system between Pragati Maidan and Mandi House stations suffered 'Track Circuit Failure' which caused the delay on the route from 8.30 a.m. and the problem was resolved by 2.12 p.m. Without proper signals, we had to run trains on restricted speed for a few hours," a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) spokesperson told IANS.

"Since morning, till the signalling problem was rectified, the trains were running at 25 km per hour, down from the regular speed of 40 km per hour," the official added.

As a result of the delay, Rajiv Chowk, Lakshmi Nagar and Preet Vihar stations were overcrowded, where many passengers were even sitting down on the platform.

Trains on other Metro lines ran normally.

Delhi Metro makes over 2,400 trips a day, covering about 70,000 km and carrying around 1.8 million passengers on working days.