Cubbon Park Metro Door Malfunction Delays Purple Line Trains for 17 Minutes

Metro commuters on Bengaluru's Purple Line, which connects key parts of the city including the IT corridor extending to Whitefield, experienced travel delays on Thursday evening after a train door malfunctioned at the Cubbon Park Metro Station.

The incident occurred at approximately 7:36 pm, causing a 17-minute delay for the affected train and temporary disruptions to five subsequent train services on the line.

According to a statement from the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), the delay was triggered by a technical issue where the doors of one train at Cubbon Park Metro Station did not close properly.

As a precautionary safety measure, BMRCL officials safely deboarded all passengers at the station. This safety procedure took approximately 17 minutes to complete, which led to the subsequent delays for five following trains.

The BMRCL Operations and Maintenance teams quickly resolved the door issue, and normal metro services were fully restored across the Purple Line. In their statement, BMRCL expressed regret for the temporary inconvenience and thanked commuters for their patience, understanding, and cooperation.

The disruption came just two days after a much larger technical failure on Tuesday evening at the exact same station. During that incident, which occurred around 6:30 pm on June 23, a technical fault in a train's Current Collector Device (CCD) brought services to a halt during peak hours, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

The Tuesday disruption caused widespread chaos on the roads as homebound commuters flooded the streets to find alternative transport. Videos of stranded passengers hitching rides on trucks and lorries went viral on social media, drawing criticism from citizens and opposition leaders.

Following Tuesday's incident, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya sent a letter to BMRCL authorities raising concerns about operational preparedness and maintenance standards. Surya noted that nearly 20 technical faults and service disruptions have been reported across the metro network since January 2024, with the Purple Line experiencing the highest number of breakdowns.

In his letter, Surya wrote that repeated ticketing failures, signalling faults, and track defects point to systemic shortcomings rather than isolated incidents, resulting in severe overcrowding, peak-hour chaos, and significant disruption to daily lives.