'Seriously, our transport system needs a major uplift,' says Stomper after NEL, Sengkang-Punggol LRT power failure
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has further elaborated on how the power failure disrupted train service on the North-East Line (NEL) and Sengkang-Punggol LRT line on Aug 12.
In a Facebook post the day after, LTA said a fault had occurred in the switchboards which fed power to the system.
"There are two switchboards that act as backups for each other. Normally, if one trips, the other can continue supplying power from the main source," explained LTA.
"However, during yesterday's fault, the first switchboard was damaged and the surge triggered a safety feature that shut down the second switchboard to protect it from damage. This also cut off the main power supply from Sengkang Depot."
The power fault affected the train service between Farrer Park and Punggol Coast stations at 11am while service continued to be available between HarbourFront and Farrer Park stations.
Stomper Nina said there was a blackout at Hougang station at 11.05am.
"No bridging buses were provided for more than 30 minutes," she added.
Sharing a photo of a police officer at Sengkang station at 11.35am, Stomper Qish said: "Purple line closed. Police said breakdown and told me to take a taxi."
Stomper KH, who was at Oasis LRT station, said the lifts were not working.
"Which smart alec decided that it's in the best interest of passengers to shut down the lifts in the event of train breakdown?" asked the Stomper.
"Have they even thought about parents with strollers or elderly in wheelchairs?
"Seriously, our transport system needs a major uplift."
After about three hours, service resumed across the entire line with all 17 stations in operation, said SBS Transit Group CEO Jeffrey Sim in a Facebook post.
"Our engineers were on site to rectify the power fault which has been traced to a power trip at our NEL depot's substation," said Mr Sim.
"Our preliminary investigations revealed that there was a failure of the power switchboard, which caused a flashover in one of the voltage transformers that are used to regulate the power supply. This resulted in a trip in both the main and backup power supply as part of the power protection mechanism.
"The faulty voltage transformer could not be repaired immediately and a decision was taken to bypass the depot substation and draw power from our other substation at Dhoby Ghaut so that train service could resume. Our engineers also carried out extensive checks to ensure that the fault will not impact the operational stations.
"Thereafter, power was progressively restored to the affected stations and NEL service fully resumed at 2.10pm."
To ensure safe running of LRT services, a complete restart and checks of the signalling and power systems and the LRT vehicles had to be carried out.
"This took additional time before power on the Sengkang LRT was restored at 3.34pm while service on the Punggol LRT resumed at 4.04pm," said the CEO.
"However, to avoid stressing the power supply from the single substation, a decision was made to operate the LRT services on a single track for both the East and West loops during the evening peak periods."
He added: "We apologise to all affected commuters for the inconvenience caused".
LTA said LTA and SBS Transit are "reviewing measures to strengthen our power system's resilience".
