Perhaps the Department of Transportation (DOTr) should have been more prudent when it heaped praise on the Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT 3) early this week, especially that around 750 passengers were again forced out of the train they were in after it broke down on Saturday.
Shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday, a southbound train unloaded passengers at the GMA-Kamuning station after it encountered an electrical failure in its motor.
The problem may have been due to worn-out electrical subcomponents, the MRT 3 management said in its advisory.
The unloading incident marks the end of the nine-day streak that the country’s main train line did not experience such problem.
It also comes two days after the militant group Bayan told the DOTr that it was still “too early to be celebrating anything,” given that while there’s a weeklong absence of unloading incidents the number of operational trains at the MRT 3 was still far from ideal.
When it took over as the MRT 3’s interim maintenance provider in November last year, the DOTr said that there should ideally be 12 to 15 trains in operation. This is down by five trains from the 20 it required previous MRT 3 maintenance provider Busan Universal Rail Inc.
In the last few months though, as the DOTr failed to meet its own target, it was forced to further lower the required number of operational trains to just 10 to 12.
Still, this was not met as the number of working trains since February ranged only from between seven to nine.
Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said on Thursday they may have just been “lucky” over the last few days when there were no recorded unloading incidents.
“The spare parts we need are already there. We are able to address [issues] immediately. There are no commuters who force open our doors. Hopefully, this would continue,” Tugade said.
The transport chief said they were targeting to increase to 15 the number of working trains after Holy Week, when the MRT 3 has already undergone an extensive maintenance check.