The nation was clamouring for the reason behind the recent repeated breakdowns of SMRT’s Circle Line, and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) delivered.
The source of the vexing train disruptions over the past week? LTA traced it to one rogue train in particular, which had faulty signalling hardware that affected the wireless signal of other trains travelling within its proximity. Hot damn.
The rebel train Passenger Vehicle 46 (PV46), apaprently caused hundreds of occurrences of loss of signalling communication — and that caused other trains in its vicinity to automatically activate their emergency brakes.
“Our ongoing investigations indicate a strong likelihood that intermittent hardware failure on PV46 was also the cause for the about 200 occurrences of loss of signalling communications on CCL trains between 28 August and 2 September 2016,” wrote LTA.
DSTA engineers helped to analyse the clues and eliminated the suspects to help trace the source of the Circle Line signal faults. pic.twitter.com/J6XXsysqGS
— Ng Eng Hen (@Ng_Eng_Hen) November 11, 2016
Tests concluded that faulty train signalling hardware on PV46 had been emitting erroneous signals in addition to signals it was supposed to emit. As a result, it prevented nearby trains from properly communicating with the trackside signalling system, and thus activate emergency brakes.
LTA has since assured that they’ve pulled the rogue train out of service, and will continue working on further investigations and rectification of faulty hardware for both PV46 and the rest of the Circle Line fleet.
“The sporadic occurrence of the incidents at different points along the Circle Line made it challenging for the investigators and I thank commuters for their patience during this period,” said LTA Chief Executive Chew Men Leong.
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