In the following article, “Trains on the North-South and East West Lines Safe for Service”, Land Transport Authority (LTA) (2016) addresses the problems that it faced and actions taken to resolve it in regards to the North-South and East-West lines trains. One of main focus was that battery housing flew open due to pressure. Secondly, cracks were also found on the draughtscreen of five trains. However, operations of train services were not affected as these problems were rectified immediately. Lastly is that hairline cracks were also found but as it is impossible to repair the cracks, affected trains that are under warranty are sent back for replacement. With a view to complete the rectification programme by 2019, LTA express that they will send two trains at a time for servicing. Nevertheless, this is dependent on the arrival of new trains along with the current ones which are undergoing resignalling. However, the lack of information given regarding the hairline cracks in LTA’s article makes its incomplete.
The first reason that makes LTA’s article incomplete is that it doesn’t clearly state who was the one who found the hairline cracks in the first place. In the article, it states “…during a routine inspection of the trains, hairline cracks …. LTA immediately carried out further inspections. “. From this, it sounds as if LTA found the cracks and act upon it immediately. In the contrary, Channel News Asia (CNA)’s Kenneth Lim (2016) published an article with a timeline which shows us the consortium, Kawasaki Sifang (KSF), is the one who conducted the inspection and noticed the cracks.
Secondly is that this article didn’t address the issue about why it wasn’t disclosed earlier. The news was first made known through a Hong Kong investigation news website, FactWire (2016), where they captured multiple photos of affected trains being transported out of a train depot and at Jurong Port. It then caused an uproar between Singaporeans and the government as to why it was disclosed first hand by a third party and only after the news leaked out they decided to go public. CNA reported, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said “if there was a safety issue, LTA would have gone public”, making me ponder if they are hiding anything else from us.
The last reason making this article incomplete is the information that are still not revealed to us yet. Based on another report by CNA, Kenneth Lim and Olivia Siong (2016) stated that Mr Lee Ling Wee, managing director of SMRT Trains, said “A monthly safety assessment is conducted to monitor the defects closely.”, which brings me to wonder how often are safety assessment actually conducted before the discovery of the hairline cracks, as during January 2011, there were no issues and fast forward to July 2013, a sudden 26 out of 35 trains required to be send back. Another point is even though they concluded all the trains are still safe to operate with the cracks they have found, then why is there the need to replace it. Another point that they fail to address is how are they planning to prevent this from happening or minimizing the chances of it, considering they already known what caused the problem, as this questions were not answered in other websites as well.
In conclusion, while LTA’s article covers the 3 main concerns, it fails to tackle question people want them to answer most, which is why it wasn’t publicized earlier. It feels as though the purpose of them writing the article is due to the fact the information they having been keeping secret had been exposed and they had no choice but to explain what is going on.
References:
FactWire. (2016). China Manufacturer for MTR secretly recalls 35 SMRT subway trains after cracks found.
Land Transport Authority. (2016). Trains on the North-South and East West Lines Safe for Service. Retrieved September 20, 2016.
Lim, K. (2016). Going public on train cracks could have caused undue panic: Khaw. CNA News.
Retrieved September 25, 2016 from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/going-public-on-train/2950576.html
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