It’s Friday the 13th and MRT becomes magnet for bad luck

Update

A northbound Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT-3) train was forced to halt between Boni and Shaw Boulevard stations on the evening of Friday the 13^th after a passenger pressed the train’s emergency button.

In a service advisory, the MRT management said that the train briefly halted at around 7:02 p.m. so the driver can inspect the trouble.

MRT-3 media relations officer Aly Narvaez said one of the passengers reported a “burnt smell” inside the train. But upon inspection, the driver said there was “no sign of smoke emission or burnt smell.”

Following the incident, Narvaez said the train’s passengers were offloaded on Shaw Boulevard station. The train was then brought back to the depot for thorough inspection.

“As of this moment, we cannot identify yet the cause of the fault in the train or if there is even any,” Narvaez told reporters in a text message.

The offloaded passengers were loaded in the next train which arrived at the station two minutes after, the MRT-3 official said.

This was the second incident in the transit line on the same day.

Earlier, a northbound train offloaded about a thousand passengers at Santolan-Annapolis station due to a “door failure.”

READ: First MRT 3 train fails after Holy Week maintenance ops 

The MRT management said the train halted at around 8:01 a.m. when its doors malfunctioned.

The failure was caused by “stress in door components.”

Asked if the train set that conked out Friday night was the same that bogged down during the morning rush hour, Narvaez said it was a different train set.

The Department of Transportation earlier called on passengers to avoid leaning on or forcing open the train doors as such actions put stress on the door components.

The unloading incidents on Friday tarnished the MRT 3’s record of not encountering such a problem for 10 consecutive days.

Since the government took over as the train system’s interim maintenance provider in November, it was only in February when passengers were spared of unloading incidents for more than a week.

The nine-day streak was, however, broken shortly after the DOTr congratulated itself for its record.

The last time that the MRT 3 unloaded passengers was in March 27, or a day before the trains were scheduled to undergo a five-day extensive maintenance check.