WR slow services hit as tree branch falls on OHE

Suburban services on Western line came to a halt during the evening peak hours after a branch of a tree fell on the overhead wire equipment (OHE) between Lower Parel and Mahalaxmi railway stations, causing a huge inconvenience to lakhs of commuters travelling in slow trains to Virar.
The woes of commuters were compounded by intermittent showers.
The incident occurred around 6.30 pm, causing tripping in the OHE wire which led to halting of Down services on slow line, a Western Railway official said.
"Immediately after the incident was reported, a team of engineers and other workers swung into action. However, as the team was doing the needful, one more branch of the tree fell, which was removed by 7.30 pm," said WR chief PRO Ravindra Bhakar.

For its part, the western railway officials diverted the slow line services on fast corridor to cater to commuters.
"A tree branch fell on OHE bet Mahalaxmi- L Parel on Down slow line.Problem attended.Traffic resumed, to be normal soon @airnewsalerts," tweeted Western Railway.

Meanwhile, a senior WR official blamed the Mumbai civic body for falling of the tree branch.
"Whenever, we seek the permission from tree authority, a wing of the civic body, we are always denied the permission to cut or trim the branches as we want. Therefore, we would now seek fresh nod from the civic body to trim old and bigger trees," he added.

One of the stranded commuters R Justin said, "I took a 6:42 pm Bandra local from Churchgate. At around 6:50 pm, the local train halted before Mumbai Central. After 30 minutes, there was an announcement that a tree has fallen on the track between Mahalaxmi and Parel stations".
He said his train finally started moving around 7:50 pm, but stopped again ahead of Elphinstone Road station.