Longer waiting times, frequent train stoppages for commuters on Wednesday morning

Commuters at Ang Mo Kio MRT station on Wednesday, July 8, 2015. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Commuters at Raffles Place MRT station on Wednesday, July 8, 2015. ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI
Commuters at Raffles Place MRT station on Wednesday, July 8, 2015. ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI
Bishan MRT station at around 8.45am on Wednesday. ST PHOTO: DANSON CHEONG
Commuters at Ang Mo Kio MRT station. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Commuters at Ang Mo Kio MRT station. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
SPH Brightcove Video
It was chaos at many MRT stations on Tuesday night after train services along the North-South and East-West lines were disrupted during the evening peak hour due to a power fault. At Bishan MRT, hundreds of commuters were seen crowding at bus stops, waiting their turn to board the free bus services.

SINGAPORE - Longer waiting times and frequent train stoppages were some of the problems train commuters on the North-South and East-West lines faced on Wednesday morning.

It was not the best of starts to the morning for civil servant Shafiq Mat Noor, who complained of stoppages from Ang Mo Kio to Bishan.

"I woke up at my usual time of 5am and it usually takes two hours to get to my workplace in Pasir Ris, but it looks like I will be late by half an hour," said the 37-year-old.

"I did not expect there to be still delays this morning."

SMRT announced in a Facebook post at 5.19am that train service had resumed on both lines at 5.30am, but with reduced speeds.

It also warned commuters that waiting times could extend up to seven minutes.

The North-South line will be suspended from 11am to 4pm for engineers to carry out further checks to determine the cause of the power trip that led to the shutdown of power across the entire network yesterday.

Others were wary of another breakdown and left home earlier, but it was business as usual at most stations.

Longer waiting times and frequent train stoppages were some of the problems train commuters on the North-South and East-West lines faced on Wednesday morning. ST PHOTO: AW CHENG WEI

Waiting times varied when The Straits Times visited several stations on the East-West line - there were some instances when trains arrived within two to three minutes, while the wait stretched to six minutes during one interval at Tiong Bahru station.

Administration executive Josephine Koh, 27, told The Straits Times she left for work about 20 minutes earlier but found things to be normal.

"I was afraid I might have to take the bus, but everything seemed okay," she added.

Meanwhile, HR executive Xie Kaiwei said she left home about five minutes earlier when she saw the news that there could be longer waits in the morning.

Remote video URL

"But everything seems quiet, I think everyone rushed out earlier because of the news of the delays," said the 25-year-old.

Yishun Junior College student Bharathi Buddhamurthy, 18, who usually takes the North-South line to school, left house 10 minutes earlier than usual to take the bus instead. But she was still late for class. "But I think my school understands," she said.

With additional reporting by Chitra Kumar

Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.