Train Services Resumed on North East Line and Sengkang-Punggol LRT

Statement by Mr Jeffrey Sim, Group CEO of SBS Transit:
This morning, train service on the North East Line was disrupted when 11 stations were affected by a power fault. After about three hours, service resumed across the entire line with all 17 stations in operation.

The power fault affected the train service between NE8 Farrer Park and NE18 Punggol Coast at 11.00am while service continued to be available between NE1 HarbourFront and NE8 Farrer Park stations. Service progressively resumed and commuters could travel between NE1 HarbourFront and NE15 Buangkok, and at 2.10pm, NEL was fully operational.

Our engineers were on site to rectify the power fault which has been traced to a power trip at our NEL depot’s substation. 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.

The power fault also disrupted services on the entire Sengkang-Punggol LRT. Recovery works on the SPLRT had to be carried out in stages to ensure a steady increase of the electrical load and prevent another power trip as both the NEL and SPLRT are now relying on a shared substation.

To ensure safe running of SPLRT 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. However, to avoid stressing the power supply from the single substation, a decision was made to operate the SPLRT services on a single track for both the East and West loops during the evening peak periods.

Meanwhile, free bridging and regular bus services continue to be available to serve LRT commuters. These bus services were also available throughout the NEL disruption and our Passenger Service Teams were on the ground to assist and guide commuters.

Our engineers together with LTA engineers will be working during engineering hours tonight to restore power supply to the NEL depot substation. This will allow full service to be available for the SPLRT when service commences tomorrow. We will work closely with the LTA to prevent a recurrence of this incident. 

We apologise to all affected commuters for the inconvenience caused.