Delhi metro train vacated due to glitch, commuters on Yellow Line hit

“As the train crossed Model Town Metro station, the operator received signal errors on his computer system. He tried troubleshooting it locally… the emergency brakes were falling into place because of the errors. This was causing a delay of a few minutes at every station,” said a DMRC spokesperson.

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He added, “A technical team boarded the train further on but when the problem persisted, we decided to send the train off to the Khyber Pass depot. In order to avoid further impact on services due to the cascading effect of the delay, the passengers were deboarded at Rajiv Chowk station and the train was withdrawn from service. It was sent back to the depot for investigation. Train services on the line became operational from 9.10 am.”

The spokesperson said, “Metro trains are designed to be ‘fail-safe’ to ensure safety of passengers and brakes are applied automatically by the system when such errors occur.”

The delays and the evacuation of the train delayed other trains on the Yellow Line, by 15 minutes or more, affecting passengers headed towards Gurgaon for work.

Rochan Mathur, an intern with Promise Foundation, who was travelling from Vishwavidyalaya to MG Road Metro station in Gurgaon, was one of the passengers deboarded from the Metro train.

“The train was stopping for five minutes at every station after I boarded it. Eventually, at Chawri Bazar Metro station, the train operator announced that we will have to deboard the train at Rajiv Chowk Metro station because there was a technical snag,” said Mathur.

“When we reached Rajiv Chowk Metro station, security personnel boarded the train and asked everyone to get off. Only 60 per cent of the passengers got off.

The train travelled to Patel Chowk, the next station, with the remaining passengers. I was one of them. There, we were asked to deboard… ,” he said.

On Monday, services on the Blue Line of Delhi Metro were hit when a damage to the overhead electrical circuit caused bunching of trains and delays.