The Central Railway (CR) decided to get into holiday mode with its timetable on Wednesday, plunging the network into chaos during the morning rush hour. CR claims the decision had been taken based on weather predictions by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). But it had to be rolled back after the morning rush hour ended, by when it had already inconvenienced lakhs of commuters and caused accidents, big and small.

Sources said with no full-time general manager and confused senior officials, CR's Mumbai division has been left with growing mismanagement and a lack of direction. CR's divisional railway manager S K Jain, who returned from holiday on Tuesday, received a rap from the Railway Board in New Delhi over the deteriorating situation. This mismanagement seemed to be evident on Wednesday too, when CR decided to run its holiday timetable. The timetable runs over 350 trains lesser than the regular 1,774 services. Moreover, high-capacity 15-car train services are also cancelled when it is being followed.