Commuter 'annoyed' by second MRT delay due to track fault on North-South Line in 3 days

It was the second MRT service delay on the North-South Line in three days.

SMRT apologised again on Wednesday (Feb 8) after a track fault occurred between Sembawang and Admiralty MRT stations at 6.45am.

Track point failure at Admiralty identified, all trains to pass Admiralty crossover at not more than 10km/h. P-way staff is using flag to control train movement at the affected crossover. pic.twitter.com/rvCJmoe3hw

— MRT Singapore Service Information (@mrtsginfo) February 8, 2023

Two days earlier, a track fault occurred before the start of service near Woodlands MRT station towards Marina South.

Stomper Anthony, who boarded the train at Bukit Batok heading towards Marina South Pier, said: "MRT track fault again – every alternate day?"

He told Stomp on Wednesday: "Early Monday morning, I boarded the ill-fated journey. Due to a track fault ahead, the train would be delayed. Then history repeated itself this morning with a track fault between Woodlands to Choa Chu Kang. The train stopped before arriving at Yew Tee station.

"It was initially announced the extra travelling time would be four minutes when I boarded the train. Then the delay was 15 minutes when arriving at Woodlands station.

"Who knows? The delay may further extend to a few hours in later announcements."

At 11.48am, SMRT tweeted for commuters to add 25 minutes train travel time.

[NSL] UPDATE: Please add 25mins of train travel time between #Yishun and #Woodlands. Our staff are working to recover service. Free regular bus and bus bridging services are still available. For alt. travel options, please use TEL or visit our website for more information.

— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) February 8, 2023

For Stomper Chloe, it took her an additional half hour to reach her destination.

She had boarded the train at Yew Tee station to go to Khatib at 9am. "The first train was 'do not board' and the passengers got kicked out," she recounted.

She took the next train to Woodlands and transferred to the Thomson-East Cost Line (TEL) as advised by SMRT.

"The weird thing was they didn’t encourage people to get off at Woodlands. People just stayed on the train even though there was a 25-minute delay from Woodlands to Yishun," she said.

From Woodlands, she rode the train to Lentor station on the TEL, where she took the bus to her destination.

"I usually go to Khatib station (on the North-South Line), but I was detoured and extended my journey by 30 minutes."

She said she was "annoyed" by the delay.

At 1.45pm, SMRT updated its Facebook post to say that regular train services resumed by 12.47pm.

The company added that this incident was not related to the North-South Line track fault incident on Monday morning.