Thousands of passengers travelling to and from Chennai by suburban trains were left stranded on Monday due to a signal failure near Guduvancheri.

Suburban trains carry thousands of passengers every day to and from Chennai. Trains starting from the Beach station reach out as far as Chengalpet. Trains were swelling with passengers on Monday at around 7 PM (the peak hour of the day) when traffic signals near Guduvancheri malfunctioned. This affected the normal course taken by trains travelling between Chengalpet and Tambaram.

As a result of the signal failure, more than thousand passengers were made to suffer. Since all the trains going to Tambaram were halted near Guduvancheri and other stations, rail traffic was severely affected. People who were going to Tambaram and other places of Chennai were seen boarding buses owing to the commotion caused by the incident.

Railway authorities, though informed immediately, took some time to arrive at the spot to figure out the fault that has happened. It took more than two hours before the automated signal system was rectified and normalcy restored.