SMRT service delays: Track fault in the morning, power fault at night
SINGAPORE — After faults with a train and a track circuit caused delays over a span of two hours on Wednesday morning, commuters on the East-West Line and North-South Line were hit by a power fault that caused train services to be halted late at night.
SINGAPORE — After faults with a train and a track circuit caused delays over a span of two hours on Wednesday morning, commuters on the East-West Line and North-South Line were hit by a power fault that caused train services to be halted late at night.
In a tweet posted just after midnight, operator SMRT said, due to a power fault, there were no train services between Jurong East station and Kranji station on the North-South Line, as well as between Tuas Link station and Queenstown station on the East-West Line.
SMRT added that free bus services were available.
Photos on social media showed passengers in darkened train cabins after the services were disrupted by the power fault.
At around 12.20am on Thursday morning, an update by SMRT said services on the East-West Line have resumed.
There were no further updates on the North-South Line but, at 1.20am, SMRT said train and bus services had ended and its engineers "will continue to work and rectify the fault".
This is the fourth time in a week that commuters have faced delays.
On Wednesday's morning rush hour period, the train and track faults saw commuters on a section of the East-West Line facing delays.
SMRT blamed faults with a train and a track circuit and said the two problems added between 10 and 20 minutes to people’s journeys.
The stretch affected was between Joo Koon and Clementi stations, in the direction of Pasir Ris.
However, irate commuters again took issue with SMRT’s estimation of the delays, with several complaining on social media that their journeys dragged on for longer.
“It’s not adding 10 minutes to travelling time, but rather 30 minutes more,” Ms Eileen Chan wrote on TODAY’s Facebook page.
Ms Lavena Xu added: “It took 35 minutes to get from Pioneer to Jurong East.”
SMRT first announced that travelling time between Joo Koon and Clementi stations would lengthen by 10 minutes at 8.41am on its Twitter page, citing a train fault.
Half an hour later, SMRT reported that another glitch had cropped up. Because of a track circuit fault, commuters should expect an additional 20 minutes’ travelling time between the seven stations, the operator said.
About an hour into the delays, SMRT said train services were progressively being restored, trimming down the estimated delay at that stretch back to 10 minutes.
At around 11am, normal train service resumed.
On Monday, a signalling fault on the East-West Line between Queenstown and Bugis MRT stations caused a 25-minute delay during the evening rush hour.
Last Wednesday, train services were delayed for about 30 minutes between Jurong East and Joo Koon stations due to a train fault.