Cable theft, damage may be cause for fault in Metro line: DMRC

Facing heat over the snag-prone metro train service from Dwarka Sector-21 to Noida City Centre/Vaishali, which was again affected today, DMRC set up a committee to investigate the incident.
"The problem has occurred due to damage or theft in the signaling cable measuring around 700 meter connecting the track circuits to the junction box between the Pragati Maidan and Mandi House Metro stations on the up line (towards Dwarka)," DMRC Executive Director of Corporate Communications Anuj Dayal said.
Owing to this defect, Metro trains going toward Dwarka were moving at a restricted speed of up to 25 kmph between Pragati Maidan and Mandi House stations as automatic target speed was not available to trains in this affected section. This was because the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system was not activated due to disruption in cable.

"This has led to slow movement of trains on Line 3/4, as DMRC is committed to ensuring full safety of its commuters," Dayal said.
DMRC's Director (Operations) Sharat Sharma constituted a three-member fact finding committee of senior officers to investigate the incident, Dayal said, adding that cable theft could not be ruled out as the reason for the fault.
Since the fault could be rectified only by physically replacing the entire cable on the affected section, he said the maintenance work would be taken up during the night hours after the passenger services are over.
To cater to the peak hour rush, DMRC inducted three additional trains from Indraprastha to Dwarka and necessary announcements were also made at the stations advising commuters about the movement of trains.

Since morning, scores of commuters faced a harrowing time as traffic on the Blue line was disrupted due to track circuit (signaling) problem.