Permission denied to suspend monorail ops on Monday for repairs
February 04, 2014  15:22
'They had two years to test the monorail in Indian conditions but when it was finally opened to the public on Sunday it became apparent that the fancy mode of mass transport had not been tested for the Mumbai rush hour.The overcrowding -- more than 700 in a four-coach train meant for 560 -- had led to several mechanical glitches,' reports Iram Siddique in the Free Press Journal.

'On Monday, with 'hyper' commuters crowding the windows to have a bird's eye view of the city through the tree canopies, the monorail almost swerved and tilted, tottering on the beam that it rides upon,' he reports, a report that is drastically different from all the puff jobs one has been reading about the new-fangled mode of transport in Mumbai.

Mathew Verghese, the operations manager, tells Siddique that there was no real danger of the monorail tipping but the tottering could surely lead to the electronic doors getting jammed. In that case, the train will have to be taken to the yard.

Siddique further reports that Scomi, the Malaysian firm behind the monorail, wanted to suspend operations on Monday, the second day of its operation. But the MMRDA denied permission to do so -- fearing public ire -- and they carried out maintenance work for eight hours on Sunday night and resumed operations with four trains on Monday morning.

Phew, what a frightening report! You can read it here.
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