Restoration of Damaged EWL Tracks Have Been Completed; Now Left With Testing

West-siders, we have good news and bad news.

The good news is this — the damaged East-West Line tracks have been restored, meaning that MRT operations are likely to resume soon.

The bad news is this — there goes your excuse to work from home.

TLDR: What the East-West Line MRT Service Disruption is About

Unless you were living under a rock, you probably know that West-siders have been fighting for their lives trying not to overspend on Grab rides the past few days.

The culprit? Disruptions to the East-West Line MRT service.

The disruption started on Wednesday (25 September), after a faulty train returning to Ulu Pandan depot damaged the MRT tracks and equipment between Clementi and Dover stations.

The faulty train even caused a power trip that caused another train near Clementi MRT to stall, leaving 850 commuters stranded.

If you saw any Instagram stories of your friends walking on the Clementi MRT tracks earlier this week, your friends likely suey, kena the stalled train.

Actually not so suey lah. Got the chance to walk on MRT tracks. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The power trip also caused train services from Boon Lay MRT station to Queenstown MRT station to stop.

If you’d like to find out more about the MRT disruption, watch this video here:

Restoration of Damaged East-West Line Tracks Completed

On Saturday (28 September), SMRT announced on Facebook that restoration work on the damaged East-West Line tracks had been completed.

“As of 28 Sep, we have successfully recovered and completed functionality tests on three track point machines and associated trackside equipment. Power rails have also been replaced, and restoration work is fully completed,” SMRT shared.

The public transport operator attributed the achievement to the “favourable weather” yesterday which facilitated significant progress in replacing the cracked rails, as well as the work teams from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SMRT “working tirelessly around the clock at sites between Clementi and Dover stations”.

Many Singaporeans also left comments on SMRT’s Facebook post, thanking those who have worked through the past few nights to restore the MRT tracks.

SMRT to Conduct Comprehensive Testing

But, before you get too excited — the completion of restoration works doesn’t mean that you can head onto the green line platform at Jurong East MRT station and catch a train to Buona Vista MRT station right now.

Before MRT operations can resume, SMRT still has one more “final boss” to defeat — testing.

“SMRT will conduct comprehensive system functional and safety tests, including checks on the tracks, power supply, and train signalling. We will also run trains at different speeds to ensure everything operates smoothly,” SMRT shared in its Facebook post.

The operator also added that the testing process will take a whole day. This means that there’s a chance that MRT operations may resume tomorrow, assuming that testing does not reveal any other issues — do keep a look out for news on when the East-West Line operations will resume!

Or don’t, then you can “act blur” and work from home for one more day. Act blur, live longer.