Commuters walk on tracks after Sengkang-Punggol LRT breaks down for 2nd time in 3 days
Commuters were spotted walking along the tracks after a power fault disrupted service on the Sengkang-Punggol LRT line on Aug 15.
Stompers Celeste, April, Yana and Ang shared photos and videos of the disruption, which began at about 8.40am.
"I saw people walking on the LRT track," said Yana.
Ang, who lives beside the tracks, told Stomp: "It's annoying because two days ago the North East Line and this LRT line were also down. Now it's down again."
April said: "I was surprised as the other day it just happened and I never thought that it would happen again so soon.
"But luckily, there are buses to every part of Punggol, hence, we just needed to proceed to the bus interchange.
"Those who were on the way to work or school were maybe more affected as it takes more time to wait for the buses.
"I went home and told my daughter about the LRT breaking down again and she had to prepare to go out earlier to wait for a bus to Punggol MRT station for her polytechnic classes in the afternoon."
Yana, who lives at Oasis Punggol, told Stomp she was on the way to Oasis Terrace when she saw the bus stop near her block crowded with people.
"Many people were coming down the stairs, including the elderly," she said.
The Aug 15 breakdown is the second time in three days that service on the Sengkang-Punggol LRT line has been hit by a power fault.
SBS Transit group chief executive Jeffrey Sim said in a Facebook post that the line was affected by a power fault, causing services at 29 stations to be unavailable for two hours.
"Preliminary findings suggest that a cable fault between two stations tripped the LRT network," Mr Sim said. "Following the earlier incident on Aug 12, which damaged the back-up switch board of the power system, we are now running on only the main and single switch board.
"Without the availability of the back-up switch board, this cable fault caused service to be disrupted and a lengthier service recovery time."
He said that the latest cable fault resulted in 10 trains stalling on the tracks.
All passengers, including those on mobility aids, safely disembarked from the trains.
He added that it "took some time" before recovery works could proceed.
Trains on the Sengkang-Punggol LRT line resumed service fully about four hours after a power fault
Services on Sengkang LRT were fully restored from 12.54pm and trains were up and running fully on the Punggol LRT line at 12.32pm, SBS Transit said in updates on Facebook.
"We apologise for the inconvenience caused," Mr Sim said.
