Train services on a stretch of the East-West Line were disrupted for more than a three-hour period yesterday evening. Disruption to train services between Joo Koon and Clementi started at around 6:30pm, and returned to normal at about 10:15pm. The Straits Times understands that a track circuit failure between Jurong East and Clementi was the cause of the problem. To alleviate the eastbound build-up of commuters, passengers on westbound services were told to disembark at Queenstown to wait for the next westbound train.
The trains then turned around to ferry eastbound passengers from Redhill station. Train operator SMRT advised commuters at around 7:30pm to expect additional travel time of 25 minutes from Joo Koon towards Clementi, due to a track fault at Jurong East station. Train service was still available, it said. SMRT said in a statement last night that as a result of the track fault, trains had to travel at slower speeds across the affected stretch for commuter safety. It also apologised for the inconvenience caused.
SMRT tweeted that there was a track fault from 6:34pm. The initial delay was estimated to be about 10 minutes, this became 20 minutes, then 25 minutes. The delay was shaved to 20 minutes at 9:30pm, then down to 10 minutes at 10:00pm. This delay comes less than a week after a morning disruption on 19th January, which caused MRT trains to crawl haltingly between Boon Lay and Clementi stations. The delays from around 7:30am to 10:00am were traced to a track circuit glitch between Jurong East and Clementi stations.
