Mumbai, Aug. 22 -- A day after as many as 1,148 passengers had to be rescued when two overcrowded monorail trains on elevated tracks got stuck between stations amid torrential rain, transport experts have called for India's only such railway system, plagued by frequent breakdowns in its 11-year history, to be scrapped and its civil structure upgraded for other solutions. In both incidents on Tuesday evening, the monorail system experienced power failures. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) attributed the problem to overloading in the case of the train that was stranded near Mysore Colony in Chembur, but maintained silence regarding the one at Antop Hill. According to MMRDA officials, when the overcrowded monorail train went around a curve near the Mysore Colony station, its coaches tilted to one side. While a slight tilt is normal for the monorail, due to the increased passenger load, one side of the coaches rose above the rail beyond 3 cm, which disconnected the power supply and brought the train to a grinding halt (see graphic). "The passenger load exceeded, and the tilted coach could not touch the current connector. The backup batteries too lost power, which were recharged once the rake reached Wadala depot," said an MMRDA official, requesting anonymity. Current connectors supply power to the monorail coaches from a 750V electricity line laid on the tracks. While MMRDA attributed the issue to overcrowding, the math does not add up. The Mumbai Monorail has been designed to carry 562 passengers per four-car train. There were 582 and 566 passengers in the two trains that got stuck on Tuesday, which is 20 and four passengers beyond capacity, respectively. According to senior MMRDA officials, the train at Mysore Colony weighed 109 tonnes, exceeding its 104-tonne limit. In other words, an extra 20 passengers resulted in the train weighing 5 tonnes or 5,000 kg more. Nevertheless, the two incidents highlighted a failure in crowd management. According to officials, the monorail staff is trained to slow down ticket issuance to prevent too many people from entering platforms, which was not followed on Tuesday. The control centre responsible for overall operation was supposed to direct the station masters to keep a check on the crowd, but a surge in commuter demand overwhelmed the system as Central Railway's Harbour Line services were suspended owing to heavy rainfall. Tuesday's two power failures were also not aberrations. There have been numerous such instances in the past, including one with the same train (RST 4) that got stuck at Mysore Colony-on April 10, 2019, it was stranded for 44 minutes at Wadala Bridge. Back then, MMRDA had towed the train to take passengers to safety. Repeated service disruptions triggered MMRDA's takeover of operations and maintenance of the Mumbai Monorail in December 2018 from a joint venture between Larsen & Toubro and Scomi Engineering, which built the transport system. Yet, despite this change of guard, service quality is still problematic,. The Mumbai Monorail has historically faced a shortage of trains, impacting service frequency."There are just five monorail rakes that are operational, of which one undergoes routine maintenance. There are another 3 rakes that are undergoing upgradation," said an official. The decision to build a 20-km monorail network along the Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle route was made in September 2008. Partial operations (Wadala-Chembur) began in February 2014. Over a decade later, the system continues to remain a white elephant....