A west-bound stretch of the East-West Line was hit by delays during morning peak hour on Tuesday (7th February), with SMRT warning commuters to expect similar delays in the evening. The morning delays, which were caused by urgent track works at Joo Koon station, lasted for about an hour. In a statement posted on its Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon, SMRT said urgent works were needed to replace a track point, which guides the direction of train travel, near the station on Monday night.
The works, which typically take two to three nights to complete, could not be fully completed and as a result, only one platform at Joo Koon was operational. SMRT explained that such works are usually planned to take place over a weekend to minimise impact on commuters, but that this was an urgent and critical case.
"As a result, commuters travelling from Jurong East to Joo Koon experienced longer journeys this (Tuesday) morning. Our engineers will complete the replacement works and get the track point up and running after the end of service tonight," the statement added.
"We are making the necessary train service arrangements to minimise congestion from Jurong East to Joo Koon this evening, and will deploy additional staff to assist commuters at stations.
"We advise commuters to cater for additional travelling time from Jurong East to Joo Koon during the evening peak today." SMRT first tweeted about Tuesday morning's delays at 8:12am, warning of an additional 15 minutes of travel time from Jurong East to Joo Koon stations. The wait for commuters stretched up to 25 minutes at one point. Train speeds were progressively returning to normal at around 9:11am, SMRT said. Several commuters complained on social media of being stuck on trains.
