Train services resume on NEL following 2-hour disruption due to signalling fault

SINGAPORE - A signalling fault at Sengkang MRT station caused a train service disruption lasting a little over two hours on the North East Line (NEL) on Wednesday evening.

In a tweet at about 9.55pm, SBS Transit said services had resumed and the free regular and bridging bus services had stopped.

The public transport operator apologised for the inconvenience caused by the fault.

In a response to The Straits Times’ queries, SBS Transit’s vice-president (special grade) of customer experience and communications Grace Wu said the signalling fault had caused train services on the NEL to operate at longer frequencies of about 20 minutes.

“Trains had to be manually driven at a much slower speed as they travelled along the affected stretch between Buangkok and Sengkang stations,” she said.

SBS Transit is investigating the incident, she added.

No service in both directions

Several commuters said they had experienced the delays as early as 7.30pm.

SBS Transit’s first tweet about the disruption came at 7.43pm, when it said commuters should expect an additional travel time of 10 minutes, which it updated to 20 minutes at 8.01pm.

It subsequently deployed free regular bus services between Punggol and Serangoon MRT stations, and advised commuters at HarbourFront, Outram Park, Chinatown, Dhoby Ghaut, Little India and Serangoon stations to use other MRT lines.

Ms Wu noted that the free bus rides and bridging bus services were made available at designated bus stops between Serangoon and Punggol MRT stations where passenger load was heavier, adding that crowds were manageable between HarbourFront and Serangoon MRT stations.

At about 9.10pm, the bus stop outside the Serangoon interchange was packed with people, with auxiliary police officers also present at the scene.

The Serangoon MRT station manager confirmed there was no service in both directions, and requested commuters to use the bus services instead.

At 9.45pm, a staff member said the delays for trains moving towards HarbourFront had been resolved, but “will be slow”, with eight to 10 minutes of travel time expected between stations.

Lack of updates

Some Facebook and Twitter users lamented the lack of updates on the situation earlier in the night, and noted issues at other North East Line stations that were not supported by the bus services.

“Not seeing any single shuttle bus at Buangkok for at least half an hour after announcement of (signal) fault,” said a commenter on Facebook. One commuter at HarbourFront said two trains with their doors open and passengers inside had not moved for more than 15 minutes. Some people were getting out, probably to find other means of transport.

Mr Alex Chua, 35, who was on the way home to Punggol after work, said he boarded the train at HarbourFront station at about 7.25pm. Because of the signalling fault, it took more than an hour for him to travel nine stops to Woodleigh, where he got out at about 9.05pm to take a taxi instead.

“It was at least a 10- to 20-minute wait at each station,” the salesman said. “The train was very crowded as people kept pouring in. There was no staff on the ground to tell passengers what was happening.”

Another commuter, Mr Steven Goh, 52, had a similar experience. He said there were many people waiting on the platform at HarbourFront station at about 8.10pm. Packed trains had stopped, with their doors left open and no staff member in sight.

Mr Goh, who is unemployed, said he was able to squeeze into one of the cabins, but it was another 20 minutes before the doors shut and the train departed.

From then, the train stopped for about 10 minutes at every subsequent stop until he got off at Boon Keng station at about 9.15pm.

Train monitoring app MRTWatch tweeted that it was “weird” that bus bridging services were made available only between Sengkang and Serangoon MRT stations when services at Outram were also down.

A train fault earlier in March saw peak-hour travel disrupted for almost three hours on the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), with operator SMRT

attributing the incident to a defective train

, which it traced back to an electronic card

.