Commuters were met with a train service disruption along the North South Line (NSL), between Sembawang and Ang Mo Kio MRT stations on Monday morning (8 Oct) at around 6am.
No official information was given by the SMRT. The cause was suspected to be the incomplete track maintenance works along the line.
Exley Yun shared a post from Singapore MRT Service Information at 6:20am, describing that they received reports of train delays between Sembawang and Ang Mo Kio on the NSL. It was suspected to be incomplete track maintenance works along the line. Trains bunching up and delays were expected.
Earlier Renfred Wang also posted on the Facebook platform about the train delay and asked for verification:
Renfred Wang wrote at 5:59am: “Heard there is a train disruption / delay between Sembawang and Ang Mo Kio due to extended maintenance work required. Anyone can verify since no announcement by SMRT?”
WB LM commented to Renfred Wang, describing about the delay with several posts:
WB LM wrote,
at 6:29am: “Now at sembawang mrt platform. Train service towards city as normal. But slower than usual, 3mins interval instead of 2min.”
at 6:34am: “Now on train towards city. In train announcement: estimated 5mins delay due to track fault ahead.“
at 6:42am: “Keep on playing announcement. Stop before Yishun 2min, waiting at Yishun few mins.”
at 6:48am: “Already more than 5mins delay. Waiting b4 khatib now….“
at 6:56am: “ A less than 10mins travel from Sembawang to Khatib took 18mins. ( and still counting) Much more than the estimated 5mins delay. SMRT when are you going to be truthful.
No offical announcement at station and platform.“
at 7:13am: “ No more delay after Khatib. Total estimated delay from Sembawang to Khatib is 12 to 15 mins.”
Other passengers also commented on Renfred Wang’s post:
Lionel Oo posted a photo and wrote at 5:42am: “At Yishun.”
Annia Ng wrote at 7:03am: “Train fault at Khatib..”
Lee See Kwang Wilson wrote at 7:04am: “Seems to be track fault. Train was moving slowly from Khatib to YCK direction.”
Jas Holland also gave information with several comment posts:
Jas Holland wrote,
at 7:06am: “Still stuck at Yishun. Announcement stop already?”
at 7:10am: “Now started to move. Track fault seems to be rectified. Train moving quite fast. Now announcement mentioned about trains clustering ahead. I think they are trying to catch up and normalise service now.“
at 7:12am: “The Stop at Kathib was fast, moving towards YCK, slightly faster than normal. Seems ok.”
And still other commuters posted on the delay:
Kalthoum Kang wrote at 7:49am: “There’s still a slight delay. Interval of about 5 mins and train stopped a while at Sembawang because the train at Yishun hasn’t moved.”
Toh Chee Kiong wrote at 8:06: “Massive overcrowding at yishun platform.”
But at 8:32 Raymond Choo informed that all were okay at Yishun:
Raymond Choo wrote: “All okay here at Yishun.”
And Renfred Wang added information that the delay was caused by a probably broken down locomotive at Yishun Siding:
Renfred Wang wrote at 8:06am: “Some stations PSC with notice of additional 10 minutes travelling time from Woodlands to Admiralty one way only. There’s a SMRT Locomotive (probably broken down since this morning, causing delays) at Yishun Siding.”
And nearly at noon Syed M Daniel shared a video from MRT Singapore Service Information, confirming that the morning train service slowdown on the NSL was caused by Engineering Locomotive breakdown. As a result for evening Peak Hours, trains terminating at Yishun will turnaround at Sembawang instead:
Syed M Daniel wrote at 11:30am: “The main reason on why there is a delay on NSL.”
At the Twitter platform commuters also informed and complained on the NSL train delay:
@SMRT_Singapore is there a delay now for NSL?
— Mira (@mira_khairila) October 7, 2018
Apparently, "we are not sure if there is a delay" is a good enough response ? #smrt #traindelay
— Kittyowlye (@kittyowlye) October 7, 2018
Train congestion at Yishun MRT southbound to the city. Expect intermediate stoppages and your travel time extend a bit. #smrt #Singapore
— Richard Jang (@richardjang) October 7, 2018
Usually reach raffles place around 715am and now it's already 730am and I am only at DG. Tsk. #traindelayduetotrackfault #smrt
— carrotoh (@carrotoh) October 7, 2018
I feel so cheated. I took the train at 6:20 and reached Raffles at 7:30. Because of that, I missed the 7:40 class. Thanks SMRT.
— Mira (@mira_khairila) October 7, 2018
It seemed the disruption was cleared after about 8:30am as there was no more complaint on the social media platforms onwards.