SMRT saw it’s third consecutive breakdowns today (May 19) at the Bukit Panjang LRT line, and it’s newly-appointed army general CEO Neo Kian Hong is still missing in action.
At around 2.20pm today, SMRT announced that all services at the LRT were terminated due to an undisclosed train fault between Bukit Panjang and Phoenix LRT station. Power and ventilation in train cabins were cut off, and according to a commuter the cabin was “cooked like an oven”. Passengers, including a few with mobility issues like elderly and infants, who were stuck in the train cabin had to walk on the train tracks back to the station for safety.
This is also the third time SMRT CEO Neo Kian Hong is absent from public statements, along with the outgoing SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek.
Earlier in March, the Land Transport Authority spent S$344 million on the revamping work of the LRT. Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan claimed that the railway route design is wrong and the LRT initial construction was rushed because the PAP government was under “political pressure”.
The Transport Ministry has broken up rail reliability measurement by the train lines, to project a better propaganda for the condemned Singapore train service. Other metro lines in Taiwan, Hongkong and Japan do not segregate their rail reliability measurement like Singapore does.