i doubt they had trouble in changing the panto, it was more due to what happened when rear panto was raised. the tree branch which caused the problem apparently shorted the connections at top of the loco and when the panto touched the huge in flow of current simply blew up the whole insulator (happens in many places where electrical connections carry huge amounts of power) and must have most likely cause the VCB to trip.
That VCB trip was probably why they were playing around with panto, as VCB trip isn't something that is supposed to be taken lightly in case of locos; once the cause is realized and taken care off they simply proceed on forward panto.