Passengers traveling on the North East Line (NEL) trains on Friday (19 July) morning, experienced delays in their commute.
SBS Transit (SBST), the transport operator of the NEL train service, informed in a tweet that it was caused by a track fault at the Harbour Front Station.
Commuters posted their information and comments on TATA SMRT Facebook about the delay:
Anthony Low wrote at 7:38am: “Northeast line experience slowness in both direction. 737am.”
Ying Leong commented at 7:44am: “Train stop at Punggol for more than 5 mins.”
Jacquelyn R Lim informed at 7:44am: “Am in a train at Sengkang mrt. Train doors did not close for 5mins++. Ok now trains just started moving. Towards town. (7.44am)”
John Glorious Wang wrote at 7:48am: “Now stuck at buangkok.”
Jacquelyn R Lim informed at 7:49am: “Ok my train fr Sengkang has moved. Next stop Kovan. Every stop will wait for 5mins+. A friend is ahead of me at Hougang. Same situation. So (I think) trains are moving but just add on 5mins every stop. Report lateness to bosses pls!” ?
Mary Lee added at 8:07am: “Train stopped for about 5 mins at sengkang (as of 8am).”
Stephen Chang informed at 8:15am: “Train running at 2mins interval now. Moderate Q at SKG, BKK. HOU Q until opposite platform. Short Q at KOV. No 5 mins stop for me to Serangoon.”
Alan Charles Yap, the Admin of TATA SMRT, shared a tweet from SBS Transit at 8:16am: “NEL SERVICE DELAY 19/07, 8.10am: NEL Svc is delayed due to a track fault at Harbourfront Stn. Additional travel time of abt 5mins is expected for both directions. We are sorry.”
SBS Transit informed the delay on Twitter at 8:11am, citing a track fault at Harbour Front Station as the reason and asking for 5 minutes additional travel time:
19/07, 8.10am: NEL Svc is delayed due to a track fault at Harbourfront Stn. Additional travel time of abt 5mins is expected for both directions. We are sorry.
— SBS Transit (@SBSTransit_Ltd) July 19, 2019
SBST repeated the tweets at 8:20am and 8:32am, asking for 10 minutes and then 15 minutes additional travel times:
19/07, 8.20am: NEL Svc is delayed due to a track fault at Harbourfront Stn. Additional travel time abt 10mins is expected for both directions. We are sorry
— SBS Transit (@SBSTransit_Ltd) July 19, 2019
19/07, 8.32am: NEL Svc is delayed due to a track fault at Harbourfront Stn. Additional travel time of 15 mins is expected for both directions. We are sorry
— SBS Transit (@SBSTransit_Ltd) July 19, 2019
The efforts to take care of the fault was not finished at 9:02am, but additional travel time asked was decreased:
19/07, 9.01am: NEL svc is delayed due to a track fault at Harbourfront Stn. Additional travel time of 5 to 10 mins is expected for both directions.
— SBS Transit (@SBSTransit_Ltd) July 19, 2019
Commuters also took to Twitter platform to inform and complain:
The #NEL is super slow this morning. Stopping and starting over and over between every station
— Nazeem (@nazeem) July 18, 2019
Ok, now the #NEL has stopped for good. Been standing still for more than 5min @LTAsg
— Nazeem (@nazeem) July 18, 2019
Train disrupted and stop at Posting Pasir in harbourfront direction #smrt #singapore #mrt #train
— Edmund Seah (@edseah) July 18, 2019
@SBSTransit_Ltd what’s going on with NEL today? Usually I’m already reaching Dhoby Ghaut from Punggol at this time, but right now, I just departed Buangkok!
— Rinaldi Widyanto (@CaiusRinaldi) July 18, 2019
#nel 0810hrs… Pretty smooth after Buangkok towards HF. Train very packed. Limited entry at every station. Track fault #SMRT #sbstransit
— Ray (@Kongleng) July 19, 2019
PSA Guys NEL from Punggol to Harboufront has track fault. So literally every stop has to stop for quite a fair bit #FridayFeeling
— tricia pang (@triciapang) July 19, 2019
Wahh this week NEL train is really the worst! That time delayed. This time we can’t even tapped in
— ✪ Syarifah Schmidt (@K_SlapShot) July 19, 2019
‘shimmer_lightdusk’ shared a photo and complained about fare, though she thought SMRT is the operator of the NEL train service:
N SMRT can still increase the fare . This is crazy . pic.twitter.com/IL37dAPWs3
— shimmer_lightdusk (@MLightdusk) July 19, 2019
Finally, at 9:25am SBST informed the fault has been rectified, the NEL train service has resumed:
19/07, 9.24am: NEL Svc has resumed. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.
— SBS Transit (@SBSTransit_Ltd) July 19, 2019
And the passengers tweets stopped after this one:
https://twitter.com/AllenFearless/status/1152027951094910976