Train services on the Northern Line were disrupted on Friday morning after a train derailed at Pothuhera Railway Station, the Department of Railways said.
The department said all trains scheduled to run beyond Pothuhera would be delayed while the obstruction remained in place. Hiru News, citing the department, added that office trains — the commuter services that carry workers into Colombo at the start of the working day — were among those affected.
The three newsrooms that reported the derailment differ on where the train was headed. Ada Derana and Hiru News both said it was travelling from Polgahawela to Mahawa. NewsFirst said the train was running from Polgahawela to Kurunegala. Kurunegala lies on the same line between Pothuhera and Mahawa, so the two accounts describe the same route as far as the derailment site, but no outlet has confirmed the service’s final destination.
None of the reports mentioned injuries. The Department of Railways has not given a cause for the derailment, has not said how many carriages left the track, and has not indicated when the section is expected to reopen.
Pothuhera sits just beyond Polgahawela, the junction where the Northern Line diverges from the Main Line, making it a choke point for services running north towards Kurunegala, Anuradhapura and Jaffna. The same junction area was affected on 13 August, when a train broke down between Ambepussa and Alawwa and held up Main Line services in both directions.
The disruption comes as Sri Lanka Railways brings in 10,000 imported rails under a Rs. 2 billion track renewal programme. That work targets the Coastal Line, not the Northern Line route affected on Friday.
