Stolen battery box brings Mumbai's Western Railway to grinding halt: Trains delayed for 90 minutes

It was not because of the heavy rainfall.

It was not because of broken overhead wires or signal failure.

It was not because someone tried to commit suicide.

It took one thief, who stole the battery box fom Mahim substation, to halt the all-time-busy Western suburban railway services to come to a grinding halt on Monday morning. Millions of peak hour commuters were stranded following a theft of a battery box on Monday morning, an official said.

According to the Western Railway PRO, the problem began when the battery was reportedly stolen from the Mahim substation. In a series of tweets, Western Railway’s public relation officer kept everyone in loop and also updated them on the latest development.

— Western Railway (@WesternRly) June 20, 2016

The railways announced at various stations that all train services on the fast and slow corridors in both directions had been stopped due to a technical snag at Dadar. “It is found that the problem has occurred due to theft of battery box at Mahim electric sub stationa. Efforts on for early restoration,” the Western Railway tweeted.

The theft resulted in the snapping of power supply between Andheri and Churchgate, affecting the entire Western Railway lifeline which is used by over four million commuters daily. However, services delayed by over one and half hour were operated on the Andheri-Virar section. BEST deployed extra buses to clear commuters rush in different directions.

With inputs from IANS