Day after dust storm, services affected on metro's Magenta Line

The 34.2-km Magenta Line connects Botanical Garden and Janakpuri West stations.

Metro

New Delhi: The presence of extraneous material that flew into the viaduct from the dust storm last night caused some technical issues and hampered metro services on the Magenta Line, officials said Tuesday. As a result, trains between Shankar Vihar and Terminal 1 IGI Airport are being run at a restricted speed since morning, they said. The train services on down line (towards Botanical Garden) section between T-1 IGI Airport to Shankar Vihar stations of the Magenta Line are running with a restricted speed of 30 kmph since 8 am, a senior official said. "This is being necessitated as a precautionary measure as one of the train's obstruction detection device had noticed some foreign material that flew into the viaduct, because of the strong windstorm last night," the DMRC said in a statement. The tracks will be cleared only after the end of revenue services at night, it added. A restricted speed is about 30 kmph, and trains' regular plying speed is about 40 kmph, the official said. However, services on the rest of the Magenta Line are running normal. The section from T-1 IGI Airport to Shankar Vihar stations is facing slower movement due to this precautionary speed restriction, officials said. Earlier an official had said that due to bunching of trains, from technical issues on the affected section, services in the rest of the corridor were also affected. Areas falling under the Palam Observatory and parts of area falling under the Safdarjung Observatory witnessed dust storm with high-speed winds on Monday night, followed by rainfall.