Fire hits Western Railway services in Maharashtra

Palghar (Maharashtra), Nov 9 (IANS) The Western Railway's (WR) long distance services on the Ahmedabad and New Delhi sectors were severely disrupted after two wagons of a goods train caught fire, with services resuming after 12 hours, officials said here on Friday.

A WR spokesperson said that the fire broke out near Vangaon station in a goods trains transporting a cargo of plastic granules from Surat (Gujarat) to Uran (Raigad), around 10.45 p.m. on Thursday.

The blaze in the 15-16 bogies resulted in the overhead electrical equipment and other railway assets also burning and falling down, following which the WR disconnected power supply, hitting all traffic movement in both directions.

Since then, all incoming and outgoing train traffic on the long-distance routes were disrupted, leading to cancellations, short-terminations, diversions, or rescheduling on the Ahmedabad and New Delhi sectors.

The work on restoring the lines was taken up on a war-footing and finally the services started normalising shortly before noon on Friday.

Thousands of passengers in both directions, rushing to celebrate Diwali weekend along with Bhai Dooj, especially on the Mumbai-Gujarat sector, complained that they were stranded for several hours owing to the disruptions.

However, the city's lifeline, suburban services remained unaffected on the Churchgate-Virar sector and was partially hit on the Virar-Dahanu routes.

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