In a 1st, snag blues hit Green Line riders as ops halt for 2.5 hours
Times of India | 18 September 2025Railway, which operates the city's rapid transit network, cited a technical issue in the signalling system, which caused services to be disrupted for two and a half hours from 10.35 am. Commuters, especially office-goers, felt let down by the "advanced" metro that had, so far, maintained punctuality and had not experienced a major breakdown since its commissioning since Feb 2020.
"A failure in the signalling system affected operations from 10.36am to 1.01pm.
This is the first time the Green Line has experienced such a significant failure. A detailed analysis is underway to ensure there is no recurrence," a Metro Railway official said. Truncated operations were run in the Howrah Maidan-Sealdah section from 11.46 am until normal services resumed along the entire 16.6km Sector V-Howrah Maidan corridor at 1.01pm.
Uluberia resident Navneet Kumar, who waited at Howrah metro station for an hour from 10.30 am, said, "I missed my exams because of the disruption.
Initially, they said to wait. Now, they can't say when services will resume. I bought a ticket for Sector V, which has been refunded. Next time, I shall take a bus instead of relying on the metro."
A "communication loss" in the signalling system halted operations completely along the entire corridor. Fortunately, East-West Metro's modern technology allowed motormen to switch from the automatic mode to the "degraded" or restricted manual mode (RMM) and continue to move the trains, albeit at low speed of a maximum 25 kmph instead of the usual 80 kmph.
Thus, passengers could safely disembark at stations instead of being stranded on the tracks.
The Green Line is operated on the communication-based train control (CBTC) system that enables advanced automatic train protection (ATP) for safety against collision, with the potential for fully automated trains with minimal operator intervention — the automatic train operation (ATO) mode. The Green Line is currently undergoing trials for the ATO mode.
The only complaints on the Green Line so far related to overcrowding at counters, platforms, and trains.
Taltala resident Sushmita Das, who works at Salt Lake's CGO complex, said, "If the new metro cannot guarantee seamless runs, what can we expect of the old one?" She made it to her workplace by taking two buses and an auto on Thursday.
There was also a ruckus at Howrah station booking counters as agitated passengers demanded to know why they had to return to their respective stations for a refund.
