According to Shriniwas Mudgerikar, chief spokesperson of Central Railway (CR), three coaches (from the back) of the 10.25 am Kasara-bound local train got separated from the parent rake as it left platform no 6 at CST. "In such a case, the rake and the parted coaches halt immediately," said Mudgerikar.

The train was later sent to the railway's Parel workshop to investigate the cause of the accident. The rake was cleared from the tracks around 10.50 am, causing a delay of more than half an hour. Nine trains were delayed in the process.

Meanwhile, a departmental enquiry has been initiated to probe the incident. Interestingly, only on Tuesday, CR had to terminate one of the new rakes at Dadar after a problem occurred in its wheel.

However, this is not the first case of rake failures in recent times. Since January this year, more than 43 cases of rake failures were reported in the suburban railways. This month alone has seen more than 19 incidents. Most of these failures occurred in the new swanky rakes, which the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) had introduced under the Phase I of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP).

But in the suburban railways, the failure of a single rake leads to bunching of trains and it paralyses the entire system. "Rake failure has become a daily phenomenon, and most of the new rakes are facing problems. But it is the commuters who suffer," said Shailendra Kamble, convenor, Pravaas Adhikaar Andolan Samiti (PAAS). "The MRVC, CR and WR have very little coordination. As the state government has also invested in buying these new rakes, it has to intervene and look into the problem."