Railway traffic on the trunk route linking New Delhi with Kolkata remained disrupted for nearly seven hours after power grid supplying electricity to the railway traction tripped.

The transmission lines of the coal-based thermal power plant at Harduaganj in Aligarh tripped first. Soon, lines of the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) and Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) also tripped, leading to disruption of power supply to the railway traction around 8 am. This resulted in a major power crisis, mostly in the western parts of Uttar Pradesh.

In Aligarh, railway engineers detected a fault in the overhead power supply system. “We made alternative arrangements to supply power to the overhead lines. The disruption, however, created a jam on the tracks as a number of trains were stranded,” a railway official said.

About 40 trains, including Rajdhani Express and Shatabdi Express, were stranded due to the power failure. Railway officials said most of the trains were stranded at different stations between Tundla and New Delhi. The situation turned from bad to worse when members of Bharat Kisan Union (BKU) staged a dharna on the railway track at Khurja station.