11-year renewal and upgrading works on the NSEWL is complete

Commuters of the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL) can look forward to more reliable rail services starting today. The multi-year programme, which was initiated in 2012 to renew and upgrade Singapore’s oldest rail lines, is now complete. 

In this last leg of the programme, works were focused on the renewal of track circuits, power supply, and the NSEWL train fleet. A common feature of these three systems is a condition monitoring feature that allows faults to be pre-emptively addressed. Accordingly, LTA and SMRT expect this feature to prevent service disruptions before a wider system failure or disruption happens.

Renewed NSEWL track circuits are designed to detect broken rails, thereby facilitating maintenance and repair works in a timely fashion

More than 1,100 track circuits on the NSEWL have been replaced as part of the renewal works. The new track circuit system works in tandem with the Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) signalling system launched in 2018, to indicate the position of all trains on the track. If a fault occurs, SMRT can focus its response efforts and speed up the train recovery process. The new track circuit system also enables the detection of broken rails to facilitate timely maintenance and repair works. 

Upgrades to the NSEWL power supply involved the replacement of various power equipment in 171 substations. The new system now has features for real-time monitoring to improve fault detection and prediction. All NSEWL stations also have new Voltage Limiting Devices installed to isolate power faults and prevent line-wide disruptions.

NSEWL commuters can look forward to riding the new trains that have arrived on our sunny shores

Alongside these renewal works are 26 new additions to the NSEWL train fleet. Of these, seven are in passenger service and 19 are being tested before deployment. These form the final batch of 106 trains purchased to replace the first-, second- and third-generation trains on both rail lines. Authorities anticipate the remaining trains to arrive and be put progressively into service from now until 2026. The new trains are equipped with sensors that can detect faults early on. 

To date, this series of renewal and upgrading works is Singapore's most significant rail network improvement. The first few phases saw the replacement of wooden sleepers with concrete sleepers followed by the replacement of the third rail, completed in December 2016 and September 2017 respectively. 

Based on a measurement of the Mean Kilometres Between Failure, rail performance has improved since 2019, thanks to the renewed and upgraded core systems

With the renewed and upgraded core systems in place, the NSEWL has recorded a Mean Kilometres Between Failure (MKBF) performance of over 1,000,000 train-km, since 2019. In 2012, before the commencement of the renewal works, the MKBF was 70,000 train-km for the NSL and 60,000 train-km for the EWL.