Delays on Circle Line during morning rush hour due to track fault
Crowds at MRT stations along the Circle Line on Tuesday (Sept 20) morning. Photo: Twitter
SINGAPORE — Commuters on the Circle Line were once again hit by delays for over three hours during the morning peak period on Tuesday (Sept 20), this time due to a track fault.
Starting from about 7am, SMRT first tweeted that that there would be additional 5 minutes travelling time from Paya Lebar MRT station to MacPherson MRT station, in the direction of HarbourFront. Later, the delay in travel time extended to up to 15 minutes, from Dhoby Ghaut MRT station to Bishan MRT station.
Mr Patrick Nathan, SMRT’s Vice President for Corporate Information and Communications, said a fault had been reported in the morning at a track point on the Circle Line near Paya Lebar Station, in the direction of MacPherson.
“Engineers were deployed to check on the fault immediately. As it requires track access, the fault will be rectified after the morning peak,” he said. “For the safety of passengers, trains are travelling slower over the affected stretch. To ease congestion, some trains were turned around at Bartley Station in the direction of HarbourFront, and free bus services have been activated between Bishan and Paya Lebar Stations. We apologise for the inconvenience.”
Free regular bus service ceased at about 10am. SMRT tweeted at 10.15am that trains were running normally.
The delays drew the ire of commuters, with several taking to social media to complain of the wait time and crowds at stations such as Bartley and Bishan.
Tuesday’s disruption comes after persistent signal interference caused travel delays on the Circle Line for about five days starting from Aug 29. Then, the Land Transport Authority and SMRT suspended mobile signals at four stations as part of investigations but were unable to verify the source of the interference.
