Commuters saw their journeys disrupted by separate faults on the North-South and North East MRT lines yesterday.
On the North-South Line (NSL), a maintenance locomotive that stalled at Raffles Place Station shut down northbound service between Marina South Pier and Newton from the start of service till about 6.50am.
Just after 11am, a power fault disrupted train service between Outram Park and Farrer Park stations on the North East Line (NEL) for about 40 minutes.
SMRT spokesman Patrick Nathan said NSL services towards Jurong East were affected as staff worked to move the stalled locomotive, which prevented northbound trains from passing through the eight-station stretch.
He added that a passenger train was activated to haul the faulty locomotive to Bishan Depot, and that SMRT is investigating why it stalled.
He apologised to those affected.
SMRT first sent a tweet at 6.09am to inform commuters about the disruption which lasted for about an hour.
Train service resumed along the affected stretch at around 6.53am.
Yesterday’s disruption came just two days after Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan wrote in a blog post that the NSL had gone 100 days without any major delays, saying that the milestone is especially inspiring, as the NSL is the oldest of Singapore’s five MRT lines.
Both SMRT and SBS Transit, which runs the NEL, deployed shuttle bus services and made regular bus services passing between the affected stations free for commuters.
SBS Transit spokesman Tammy Tan apologised to affected commuters and said the cause of the power fault is being investigated. Both operators declined to provide the number of commuters affected by the delays.
Medical student Sean Wu, 25, boarded a train at Outram Park after work to head home, and waited in it for about 15 minutes. He said he was unaware of the shuttle bus services as he did not hear any announcements.
“There should have been a public service announcement at the station, not on Twitter,” he added.
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