The Down Town Line (DTL) experienced delays due to signalling fault at Tampines station on Tuesday evening. Commuters were left wondering for an hour odd for the cause of delay as the SBS transit, did not announce the cause of the delay immediately.
A commuter, Daniel Lim tweeted at 6:34pm stating that the DTL stopped for a while:
“DTL stopping for A WHILE.” I’m not having a good feeling about this, especially for tmrw.. @SMRT_Singapore @SBSTransit_Ltd
I don’t know which one of you owns it.
— Daniel Lim (@danielZXlim) December 12, 2017
Other tweets informed that the DTL train has been stuck at Bugis for the past 10 minutes at 6:47pm and also at Telok Ayer towards Expo at :708pm:
https://twitter.com/iamjosiahtan/status/940533474338861056
@SBSTransit_Ltd DTL Trains not moving due to track fault. This has been happening in past 10 mins already at Telok Ayer towards Expo. Have sneakily put next train arriving in 1 min to cover up. https://t.co/l4iRDAhqdX
— Kelvin Wee (@gtcalpha) December 12, 2017
Other commuters also tweeted about the delay and their disappointments, but many thought that the DTL is operated by the Singapore Mass Rapid Transport (SMRT):
What’s wrong with DTL
— Ronald McClunky (@ChickenMacabre) December 12, 2017
Seriously @SMRT_Singapore your “for a short while” is more than 20 minutes liao! #stuckatLittleIndia ?
— Mom DB Jo (@TasDBJo) December 12, 2017
On-ground updates will always beat the speed of the @SMRT_Singapore comms team. Downtown line is down but no official updates yet
— Julian Chow (@jchowjs) December 12, 2017
DTL doors not closing trains not moving for the 15 min um standing there. I'm sure it's been stuck way longer before I was there. Look for alternative #smrt
— Low Liqian (@LOWLIQIAN) December 12, 2017
Julian Chow wrote in his tweets that the staff were clueless about the train delay and couldn’t give good information; However, Julian also thought that SMRT is the one responsible though he added that the staff were not to blame:
The @SMRT_Singapore staff are super clueless about the train delay. When asked about how long the delay is, they say "resuming soon". Still stuck here after 10 mins
— Julian Chow (@jchowjs) December 12, 2017
Don't blame the staff – they probably don't have an idea of what to say. And probably can't say "don't know" as part of the SOP @SMRT_Singapore
— Julian Chow (@jchowjs) December 12, 2017
Other commuters directed their questions to SBS Transit, asking why the trains had long stops at each station:
@SBSTransit_Ltd hi! Why is there delayed stop at each station on DTL? There are no reasons communicated. cc: @ChannelNewsAsia @STcom
— Farha Bamadhaj (@farhamb03) December 12, 2017
What's wrong with DTL? Train's been stopping quite for a while in the stops @SBSTransit_Ltd
— Mohamed Zulfi (@djzul) December 12, 2017
Finally at 7:47pm a tweet from SBS Transit gave some info that the delay was caused by a signaling fault at DT32 Tampines Station:
DTL svc is delayed due to Signalling fault at DT32 Tampines Stn. Additional travel time of about 10minutes may be expected. We are sorry.
— SBS Transit (@SBSTransit_Ltd) December 12, 2017
And at 8:13pm, SBS informed that the normal service on DTL has resumed:
DTL is back to regular svc. Once again we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.
— SBS Transit (@SBSTransit_Ltd) December 12, 2017
However, at 9:15pm a commuter tweeted that DTL at Upper Changi Station experienced delay:
DTL towards Bt Panjang: Train delay at Upper Changi Station.
— HY 智慧怡人 (@tanhuiyi) December 12, 2017