FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Metro Rail Transit-3 (MRT-3) and the Philippine National Railways (PNR) halted their operations due to a signaling issue and a derailment incident on Wednesday.
In an advisory early Wednesday morning at 7:30 a.m., the Department of Transportation (DOTr) said that train operations were suspended at 5:12 a.m. “due to abnormal signaling indication encountered along Shaw Blvd station.”
“All trains were stopped at the nearest station as a precautionary measure as technicians troubleshoot the issue,” said DOTr.
Full and normal operations only resumed almost two hours after, at 6:58 a.m., after the MRT-3 Control Center reported normal indication on the signaling system.
MRT-3 officer in charge director for operations Oscar Bongon told reporters that a total of 3,600 passengers were affected during this incident based on their fare collection systems.
To address the buildup of passengers due to the suspension of operations, Bongon also said that the MRT-3 added two more trains in their operations.
He then apologized for the MRT-3’s late advisory, “During the time we were in close coordination with the technical team, medyo tumagal ‘yung intervention they’re thinking na mano-normalize agad, kaya hindi po kami agad nakapagbigay ng abiso,” he said.
(During the time we were in close coordination with the technical team, and the intervention took a bit longer, they thought that it will normalize immediately, so we were not able to give notice immediately.)
Derailment incident
Meanwhile, just past an hour after the MRT-3 reported the “abnormal signaling indication,” the PNR also announced at 6:25 a.m. that it had delayed some of its train trips due to a “derailment incident” at the Magsaysay Crossing in Sta. Mesa.
“Ngayong umaga ng Nobyembre 2, 2022, maaantala ang byahe ng mga trains dahil sa isang insidente na pagkadiskaril malapit sa Magsaysay Crossing sa Sta. Mesa,” it said.
(This morning of November 2, 2022, trains will be delayed due to a derailment incident near Magsaysay Crossing in Sta. Mesa.)
The trips to and from the said locations only resumed at 8:25 a.m. based on the PNR’s latest update.
PNR General Manager Joseline Geronimo then explained to reporters that the derailment was caused by the recent typhoon — causing softened tracks due to several days of heavy rain.
According to Geronimo, the train that derailed had 120 passengers on board.