Timeline: How technical glitch hampered Delhi Metro Yellow line service for hours

NEW DELHI: A technical glitch on Delhi Metro's Yellow Line disrupted train services for at least four hours on Tuesday forcing passengers to be stranded on the road, trapped in coaches and traffic snarls all the way from Gurgaon to New Delhi. The train services on Yellow line between Qutab Minar and Sultanpur section were affected on Tuesday from 9:27 AM to 1:28 PM due to breakdown of Overhead wire (OHE), reported by a train as it approached Sultanpur Metro station (from Chhattarpur), leading to tripping of power supply in this section.

Here is a timeline of what happened and how DMRC restored the services:

09:45 AM - Due to tripping of power supply, two trains which were in this section (Train-1 between Qutab Minar & Chattarpur and, Train-2 between Chattarpur & Sultanpur) went immobile and it was decided to deboard the passengers and take them smoothly towards the nearest Metro station.

11:10 AM – Around 2600 passengers from Train-1 were taken towards Qutab Minar station

11:27 AM - Around 3000 passengers from were taken towards Chhattarpur Metro station

The DMRC in a statement on Facebook said that the deboarding process takes time as it requires the use of emergency gate.

In the meantime, to ensure that services are available uninterrupted on rest of the sections on Yellow line, DMRC introduced short loop services as given below:-

09:32 AM – Short loop services introduced between Samaypur Badli and Qutab Minar section of Yellow Line at a frequency of around 2 minutes and between Sultanpur and HUDA City Centre section at a frequency of around 6 minutes.

09:27 – 11:50 AM - There was no Metro Service available between Qutab Minar and Sultanpur section.

10.50 AM onwards – 29 buses were introduced to bridge this gap and provide connectivity to the commuters between the Qutab Minar – Sultanpur affected section.

10:00 AM - Two maintenance teams of DMRC technicians consisting of 16 officials reach the affected site of OHE and took up repair work on war footing basis. The team comprised of experienced technicians from the traction department supervised by senior officials.

11:50 AM -Single line train services started between Qutab Minar & Sultanpur, the services were partially resumed on the affected section.

01:15 PM – OHE repair work was completed followed by its charging and subsequent removal of stranded trains from the section.

01:28 PM – Normal train services were restored on both the Up and Down Lines of entire yellow Line.