A train service disruption along the East West Line (EWL) occurred this morning (12 Dec), caused by an accident at the track side during maintenance work near Joo Koon MRT station; one SMRT staff suffered foot injuries and conveyed to the hospital.
There was no train service between Gul Circle and Boon Lay and SMRT informed the incident on its Twitter platform:
[EWL]: Due to an accident on track side , there is no train svc btwn #GulCircle and #BoonLay.
Free Bus bridging services is available between #GulCircle and #BoonLay.— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) December 11, 2018
SMRT repeatedly tweeted the same information at 5:15am, 5:19am, 5:35am, 5:52am and 6:11am:
[EWL]:Due to an accident during track maintenance, there is no train svc btwn #GulCircle and #BoonLay. Free regular bus and free bridging services are available between #GulCircle and #BoonLay
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) December 11, 2018
Some commuters reacted with sympathy on the social media platforms; Adam Satria Premanon tweeted:
Hope the staff involved r ok. Speedy recovery!
— Adam Satria Premanon (@MasterPremanon) December 11, 2018
On TATA SMRT Facebook, Tommy Soon wished speedy recovery for the SMRT staff who got injured:
Tommy Soon wrote: “There will be a slight delay on EW line towards paris ris due to train congestion Pls take note. Current location at city hall. Let’s be understanding on this as I believe most of us know what happen. Let pray for speedy recovery for the SMRT staff who got injure just now.”
And the Administrator of TATA SMRT Facebook, Alan Charles Yap, posted his thought for the day:
Earlier this morning, there was a train disruption along the East West line involving the stretch between Gul Circle and Boon Lay station.
For many people here, how will you react if you come to know that the MRT line got disrupted? Let’s be honest here. Most of us will be angry, with angry reacts on Facebook and there will be numerous rants over Facebook and other social media channels e.g. Twitter, etc. While it cannot be helped that most of the disruptions are due to technical faults and netizens are quick to blame the operator or the government regulatory body, etc, we cannot say the same for the accident that happened earlier today.
The line was disrupted due to a work related accident and SMRT have issued a statement that one of the staff suffered a foot injury.
Rail engineering staffs do not have the luxury of working a regular office hours with weekend off like most of us here. They have to follow a shift based roster and with only a few hours of time during the non train service hours overnight, the staff have to work tirelessly to grind and maintain the tracks while most of us are sleeping through the night, so that train commuters like us can enjoy a smooth ride and even catch some sleep during the morning commute to work. You wouldn’t want the train ride to be bumpy because of lack of maintenance right?
The staff who was involved in an accident had to be conveyed to hospital and may even need to be warded, depending on the severity of the injury. For all you know, the staff may be an aspiring youth who wants to save enough money to get married, or may be a father who have to earn a living to support his family and children, or even a grandfather.
Let us take time out from our busy work or personal schedules and pray for his speedy recovery to the injury. Instead of being critical and finger pointing or play the blame game on who is at fault when train disruptions happen, remember nobody wants this incident to happen. Let us show our appreciation to the unsung heroes in the rail industry, especially the engineering workers who have worked tirelessly to ensure a more reliable train service for all to enjoy.
Thank you for your time and have a good day ahead.
Alan Charles Yap
Admin, TATA SMRT
Finally, at 7:22am SMRT informed that the train services had resumed, free regular and bridging bus services had ended. The tweet was repeated at 7:49am:
[EWL] CLEARED: Train services between #GulCircle and #BoonLay have resumed. Free regular & bridging bus services have ended. We are sorry to all commuters who were affected this morning.
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) December 11, 2018
However, some passengers were feeling disrupted and scathed, as could be seen by their posts on the Twitter platform:
https://twitter.com/AdmRfi/status/1072623323505455104
https://twitter.com/YanYan20662254/status/1072636813897068545
SMRT disruption even on maintenance the track and system… Whose fault to blame? CEO?, LTA, or MOT
— Johannes lim (@Johanneslim1) December 12, 2018
times like this – @SMRT_Singapore failing the public transport population in Singapore – I wish I could look like a pregnant lady so that I don’t have stand for 14 stops and miss my morning nap which is very integral to my productivity. #help
— Cadence (@cadencelam) December 12, 2018
SMRT's train departure schedule went balls-to-the-wall today. Woke up early to catch a fresh train but now I'm in the most crowded train ever pic.twitter.com/ao1m2x4gzH
— KUVON ? (@Kuvonkiel) December 12, 2018
how is my 6 cents per trip fare hike justified when you’re breaking now every now and then? @SMRT_Singapore
— Cadence (@cadencelam) December 12, 2018
$0.06 x let’s say 3 million people a day who commute 2x a day = $360,000. Wow @SMRT_Singapore since it’s an additional $10mil revenue a month, I best hope I’m gonna get a quick bullet train sorta ride
— Cadence (@cadencelam) December 12, 2018
On TATA SMRT Facebook Jordan Siah shared a tweet from SMRT, explaining what happened earlier today:
Jordan Siah wrote at 7:36am: “Here is what happened earlier today.”