North-East Line suffers 20-minute delay
Train delays continued on Tuesday morning, this time with the North-East Line suffering a signalling fault that affected two trains.
Train operator SBS Transit said that a signalling fault that took place at about 7:45am triggered a 20-minute delay between Outram Park and HarbourFront MRT stations, in the direction of HarbourFront.
“Two trains stopped in the tunnel during that time as engineers worked to reset the system,” senior vice president of corporate communications Tammy Tan told Yahoo! Singapore, adding that announcements were made to passengers on its trains and its station platforms along the line.
Commuters told Yahoo! Singapore their train journeys were delayed between two and five minutes at a time, with trains stopping at stations for extended periods with their doors open.
User Eunice Tan said that her journey from Sengkang to Dhoby Ghaut stations took 40 minutes when it should normally take about 25 minutes at most.
“At every station, doors were kept open for more than 5 minutes,” she wrote in a comment on Yahoo! Singapore’s Facebook page. “(There were) no announcements or anything, people kept squeezing themselves in, and it was only after (the train passed) Potong Pasir that (the train reverted) to normal,” she added.
Another commuter, Liz Widjaja, added in a comment that there was a delay at Dhoby Ghaut station at about 8am as well.
She wrote, “What made it worse was that commuters originally from the red (North-South) line who transferred to the purple (North-East) line kept coming onboard even when it was jampacked!”
Rosey Teo also wrote on the page that her train on the North-East line halted for about five minutes at every station. Fearing the train might stall between stations, she decided to get out at Farrer Park station to catch a bus, which she said was crowded.
Other commuters were not as bothered by the delays they experienced. Yahoo! Singapore reader Eloise Sim said she took the chance to “relax and slow down”, adding that the delays she experienced lasted only for about two minutes at “some of the stations”.
SBS Transit apologised for the incident, saying that full train service resumed at 8:05am, and that its customer service officers were available to assist passengers who were affected by Tuesday morning’s delay.
