Train services on Mumbai-Pune route hit for nearly 8 hours as boulders fall on track; traffic restored

Train services on the Mumbai-Pune route were disrupted for nearly eight hours early on Friday after boulders fell on a railway track in the Lonavala-Karjat ghat section, although the traffic movement was restored later, officials said.

The incident occurred on the Up (Mumbai-bound) line between Nagnath and Palasdhari stretch in the ghat section around 12:50 am and the services were restored at 8:15 am, they said.

After the boulders fell on a track in Bhor ghat, several outstation trains were detained for 30 minutes to around one hour, which affected the services between Mumbai and Pune, the Central Railway (CR) said on Friday.

"The incident occurred on the Mumbai-bound line," Shivaji Sutar, chief public relations officer of the CR, said.

The Lonavala-Karjat ghat section has three railway lines - Down, Mid and Up, he said.

"The traffic on the affected Up line was restored at around 8:15 am, after around eight hours of efforts. During the restoration work, mail express trains were diverted on the Mid line. So, the Up and Down lines traffic was running on Down and Mid lines," he said.

He further said that due to the availability of only two lines as against the usual three, trains moving towards Mumbai from Pune, and also due to the movement of ghat banking locomotives, a few Down trains suffered detention of up to one hour during the restoration work.

Sutar said that an on-duty patrolman, Motiram Lobhi, found that the boulders had fallen on the track, and took necessary steps to avoid any untoward incident.

"He took quick action and stopped one banker (locomotive), which was in a section, by showing a red signal. After that, he called his higher officials and informed them about the incident," the official said.

The boulders that had fallen were up to two metres in size. A boulder train was roped in for the restoration work, Sutar added.