Signal failure brought EMU movement to a standstill for around an hour from 4.35 pm on Monday on the busy Beach-Tambaram stretch, hitting services in the city for the third consecutive day.
Railway officials at major stations such as Guindy, Mambalam and Egmore had a tough time answering queries of restless passengers about resumption of services.
Monday’s incident indicates that signal failures could be called the Achilles’ heel of the railway officials in Chennai.
Enquiries revealed that the signal failure had occurred between Mambalam and Saidapet. Similar technical glitches had left the EMUs halted midway on Sunday and the day before.
Divisional railway manager S. Anantharaman told DC that Monday’s failure was a “spillover” of a signal failure that happened between Koyambedu and Mambalam on Saturday.
Attributing Saturday’s signal failure to careless burning of garbage beneath a culvert by local residents, Anantharaman said the services were affected only for 20 minutes and the damage caused by the fire was repaired permanently this evening.
A signal failure had given passengers a harrowing time early last week when trains bound to Central station were diverted to Beach from Basin Bridge during peak hour in the morning.
Like on Monday evening, office goers and many college students were forced to make a detour at the nick of time and spend more to travel by buses and autorickshaws to make up for the lost time.