Less than 36 hours after the derailment of a local train on Wednesday night, another Central Railway (CR) local derailed at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) at the same spot, bringing train services to a halt during peak hours on Friday.

The CR has asked the Commissioner of Railway Safety to conduct an inquiry into the matter and check all the ‘cross-over’ tracks leading to CST. More than 1,300 trains enter or leave CST daily.

Friday’s derailment occurred at 7.02 am when a Kasara-CST (Kasara local no 2) local was entering platform 6.

The fifth and the sixth coaches derailed at the very spot where a Kalyan-CST local had derailed on Wednesday. The local had left Kasara around 4.12 am and was expected to reach CST at 6.54 am.

Sources said the tongue rail (the cross over) could have been damaged, leading to the derailment as it happened on Wednesday.

Since the cross-over point where the derailment occurred is between platforms 5 and 6, trains could not enter platform 5 as well.

The derailment had also damaged both the platforms.

The derailment during peak hours led trains in CR to run 30-45 minutes late. Due to bunching of trains, it took around 25 minutes to cover the distance between Sandhurst Road to CST. To avoid bunching of trains, the CR had to cancel 22 trains during the morning rush hours.

The CR undertook repair works and the derailed coaches were cleared around 12 pm. Platforms 5 was cleared around 6 pm.

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