Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Hearing Of The Breakdowns

In the inquiry into the two major MRT breakdowns last year, the problems seem to be on the breakdown of equipment. Both the LTA and SMRT agreed that the cause of the disruptions was a power failure after damaged and missing current collector shoes were dislodged from the third rail power system.

Basically, simple wear-and-tear on the MRT system. The judge in the case even asked the government and transport operator SMRT to look into new ways to detect equipment problems.

Sorry but I just don't buy it.

Yes, I know the enquiry is still on-going but I just can't believe the problem is as simple as wear-and-tear. The reason for my disbelief is because if wear-and-tear is the reason, why the hell did breakdowns affect the North-South line (NSL) and the Circle Line (CCL)? Just today, trains on the CCL broke down for more than 2 hours. The CCL is only about a year old. The official reason is an electrical fault. Are you telling me there's an electrical fault due to wear-and-tear on a rail system that is only 1 year old?

Unlike some Singaporeans, I was more than willing to give the government and SMRT a chance to explain the faults but that is nonsensial. Hopefully the end result of the enquiry will be something other than "wear-and-tear" because no one in Singapore will buy it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They seemed to push all the faults on equipments and long usage of it. I see the root cause are from Human oversight, especially the management team who is complacent all these years. If you broke a vase, do you blame the vase or the person who broke it? Simple logic and don't require a law to know the answer.

Ghost said...

The issue reminds that if it was faults on the equipment, it can't be due long usage because the CCL and NSL are so new. So logic tell us the faults must lie elsewhere.