Suburban train signal glitch in Chennai leaves commuters stranded

Chennai: Commute for suburban train passengers was hit on Thursday morning after a signal glitch disrupted suburban train services on the section between between Villivakkam and Perambur. An official from Chennai division of Southern Railway said the signal failure was detected near Perambur railway station around 5.20am, delaying at least three suburban trains from Arakkonam to Chennai Central by 20-30 minutes during peak morning hours."The signal failure was fixed around 5.50am and services were restored. But it took another hour for train operations to fully return to schedule," the official said.Commuters alleged that delays on the corridor have become frequent in recent weeks. "On Monday, the train that usually takes 50 minutes from Chennai Central to Pattabiram took nearly 1.5 hours. Southern Railway has been ignoring the issue until now," said T Sadagopan, a commuter from Pattabiram.