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I have locked the old thread (ALL consolidated SMRT/NEL/KT.. simisai BREAKDOWNS here!) as it is getting to large (>10,800 posts). Please continue the discussion here, on matter relating to mantenance and breakdown of MRT & LRT network. On discussion of management and other administrative matters, please post it under the Change in SMRT CEO (Apr 2018), Management & Other Matters. 4 current / standing announcements by SMRT and SBS Transit as follow: Early Closure/Late Opening of MRT stations along the North-South Line in May 2018 for Maintenance and Improvement Works Affected Stations Alternate Transport Services Bukit Panjang LRT to close every Sunday from 15 April to 24 June for Planned Maintenance Work SMRT will be carrying out planned maintenance work on the Bukit Panjang Light Rail Transit (BPLRT) every Sunday from 15 April to 24 June 2018. As such, there will be no LRT services on Sundays during this period. In lieu of LRT train services on these 11 Sundays, shuttle buses which run parallel to the BPLRT network will be available (Refer to Annex A) for commuters as an alternative travel option. This is in addition to the existing bus services which already serve the Bukit Panjang town. Alternative Travel Options Stations along the East-West Line will continue to close earlier, open later on April weekends All 35 MRT stations along the East-West Line (EWL) from Tuas Link to Pasir Ris, and from Tanah Merah to Changi Airport, will continue to close earlier and open later for all weekends in April 2018. Appendix A - Last train timings on the East-West Line on Fridays and Saturdays for April 2018 - First train timings on the East-West Line on Saturdays and Sundays for April 2018 Appendix B - Shuttle Bus and Express Bus Services Operational when MRT stations Close Early or Open Later for April 2018. Appendix C - Alternative Travel Plans for Shortened Operating Hours on EWL from 2 March to 29 April 2018 Extension of service hours for 14 bus services due to EWL Maintenance Works The operating hours of 14 SBS Transit bus services - Services 51A, 60A, 63M, 181, 222, 225G, 228, 229, 240, 241, 243G, 291, 292 and 293 - will be extended to 1.30am on Fridays and Saturdays in the month of April due to the early closure of all 35 stations along the East-West Line (EWL) from Tuas Link to Pasir Ris and from Tanah Merah to Changi Airport. Appendix - Last Bus Timings on Fridays and Saturdays in April 2018

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Transportation/Indonesia-high-speed-railway-still-beset-by-problems?utm_campaign=GL_asia_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NA_newsletter&utm_content=article_link&del_type=1&pub_date=20230213123000&seq_num=6&si=44594 Indonesia high-speed railway still beset by problems Safety, profitability and accessibility issues haunt $6bn China-led project Trials of Indonesia's high-speed railway, which can operate at speeds of up to 360 kph, are scheduled to begin at the end of May. © Reuters KOYA JIBIKI, Nikkei staff writerFebruary 11, 2023 12:01 JST JAKARTA -- Indonesia's planned high-speed rail project, an integral part of China's Belt and Road initiative, is raising fresh concerns about its safety, profitability and accessibility. Scheduled to start service in July, a month later than planned, the 142-kilometer-long railway will connect the capital Jakarta with Bandung in West Java province. In mid-December, a maintenance train and locomotive derailed at a construction site near Bandung, killing two Chinese workers and spurring concerns about the safety of high-speed rail in the country. It was the first fatal accident involving the line. A senior Indonesian government official said there was a problem with the locomotive's brake and that human error could also have played a part in the accident. Both Jakarta and Beijing said that the accident poses no threat to the safety of high-speed rail in Indonesia. Both governments stressed that the accident was caused by the maintenance vehicle and that the locomotive imported from China escaped major damage. Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC) -- the consortium running the project, which is funded by state-owned railway operator Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) and other organizations -- resumed construction before findings of the government investigation into the accident were released. The president of KAI told reporters on Jan. 28 that the railway's opening will be postponed until July. Some have voiced doubts that the line will open in July. Construction work is only 84% complete with some railway track still not laid, according to KAI. Trial runs of the high-speed line, which will operate at up to 360 kilometers per hour, are scheduled to start around the end of May. But even if all goes well, meeting the July deadline will be difficult, based on Japanese standards. An executive of a Japanese trading house who has experience in overseas railway projects said that data collected during the trials will be important. Trials must run at maximum speed after which the positions of tracks are adjusted -- sometimes in millimeters. Testing and verifying overseas rail projects backed by Japan takes at least a year, according to a Japanese government official. Billboards at construction sites in Bandung, West Java are often written in Indonesian and Chinese. (Photo by Koya Jibiki) Another concern is profitability. The Indonesian government initially tried to adopt Japan's bullet train for the project, but in 2015 switched to a Chinese proposal that did not involve funding by the Indonesian government. It was decided that 75% of the construction cost would be funded by loans from China Development Bank with the remainder coming from KCIC. Construction began in January 2016 with completion set for 2018. But overly optimistic estimates about acquiring land needed for construction pushed the finish date back. In addition, construction costs have swelled well past the initial estimate of $5.5 billion, forcing the Indonesian government to inject more than 7 trillion rupiah ($462.1 million) into the project. A KCIC official in December told parliament that the consortium has requested the government to extend its operating rights to 80 years from the initial 50. The group plans to eventually transfer all rights to the government but said that it will take more time to recoup investment due to the delays and ballooning costs. KCIC has set the Jakarta-Bandung fare at 250,000 rupiah, saying that the price strikes a fair balance between profitability and usability. The company plans to keep fares for the line only about 20% higher than that of KAI limited express trains to attract riders. Meanwhile, some observers think the project does not align with President Joko Widodo's plan to relocate the nation's capital to East Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. Others raise the question of the new line's accessibility in Bandung, noting that the terminal is too far from the city center. Passengers will have to board a different train when traveling between the Bandung terminal and the central district -- adding nearly 20 minutes to the 36-minute ride from Jakarta. It still shaves considerable time off existing train service, but the inconvenience may irk some passengers. Despite the problems, the government is rumored to be thinking about converting all existing KAI lines between Jakarta and Bandung into high-speed rail. But some users have already voiced opposition, saying that speed is not the most important aspect of travel between the two cities, as they prefer more leisurely journeys to enjoy the view along the route. The Indonesian government has floated the idea of extending the new railway to the country's second-largest city Surabaya in East Java province. Japan plans to help Indonesia make existing medium-speed trains between Jakarta and Surabaya faster through official development assistance, but some Japanese government officials remain skeptical of the plan. Additional reporting by Bobby Nugroho

DK stepping down. SMRT's Desmond Kuek stepping down, expected to be replaced by former chief of defence force Neo Kian Hong SINGAPORE - SMRT chief executive Desmond Kuek is stepping down after 5½ years at the helm, and his successor is expected to be former chief of defence force Neo Kian Hong, according to reliable sources. Mr Neo, 54, is currently permanent secretary for defence development. He had succeeded Mr Kuek, 55, as Chief of Defence Force in 2010.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/Southeast-Asia-s-Belt-and-Road-rail-hopes-beset-by-delays?utm_campaign=GL_asia_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NA_newsletter&utm_content=article_link&del_type=1&pub_date=20211111190000&seq_num=20&si=44594 Southeast Asia's Belt and Road rail hopes beset by delays Only small fraction of Thailand's segment completed after 4 years A rail line from Kunming, China, to Vientiane, Laos, is slated to open on Dec. 2. But other parts of the pan-Asia railway face setbacks. (Photo by Vientiane Times) MARIMI KISHIMOTO, Nikkei staff writerNovember 11, 2021 02:41 JST BANGKOK -- Much fanfare greeted a Chinese plan to connect Southeast Asia through more than 3,000 km of high-speed rail when it arrived in Thailand in 2017. But on the ground near one of its many pieces, the project has so little visibility that a train station attendant struggled to find it. "A construction site for high-speed rail?" the mystified attendant in Nakhon Ratchasima, a two-hour drive north of Bangkok, said last month. "I don't know where it is." The site, only about 100 meters from an existing rail line, had been graded but no rails had been laid. Nor is this the only delay for a project touted as a centerpiece of China's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. The rail network, variously referred to as the Kunming-Singapore Railway or the Pan-Asia Railway, is supposed to begin in Kunming in southern China and snake through Southeast Asia, ending in Singapore. Once completed, it would give China an artery to move goods and people from a landlocked province all the way to the tip of the Malay Peninsula. In Thailand, the 250 km stretch between capital Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima was designated as the first segment. The groundbreaking ceremony in December 2017 was attended by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and other senior officials. But after nearly four years, only 3.5 km of rail has been laid. Nowhere to go: A section of rail in Thailand's Nakhon Ratchasima province had yet to be laid in October 2021. (Photo by Marimi Kishimoto) The first section was supposed to go into operation this year. Now the start date has been pushed back to 2026, according to the latest schedule by Thailand's Ministry of Transport. Because of delays, the second section connecting Nakhon Ratchasima with the Laotian border will not go into service until 2028. The project to build the section going south from the Thai capital to the Malaysian border has been put on hold. "Construction has been delayed because Chinese engineers can't enter the country due to COVID, as well as delays in land acquisition," said Pichet Kunathamaraks, deputy director-general of the transport ministry's Department of Rail Transport. The section connecting Kunming and the Laotian capital of Vientiane -- the only segment whose construction proceeded on schedule -- is due to begin service Dec. 2. China led that phase and covered 70% of the costs. The segment was completed in roughly five years. Elsewhere, setbacks have been frequent. Plans to build the 350 km segment linking Singapore and the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur were officially halted in January. The two countries formally agreed to the construction in 2013, but former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad froze the project in 2018. Despite efforts to renegotiate the terms of the project, the parties could not come to an agreement before the December 2020 deadline. For the Malaysian segment connecting the city of Kota Bharu in the north to Port Klang in the west, less than a quarter of the construction had been finished by the end of August. Completion is expected to be pushed back by a year from the current target of the end of 2026. The delays will sway the profitability of the various segments, which rely heavily on Chinese financing. Laos estimates that it will take 30 years after starting rail services to pay back the debt for building the line within its border. But that projection depends on receiving enough income from connections to surrounding countries. The spotty construction of the remaining segments will virtually guarantee that ridership will be weak. Some have expressed concern that Laos may be unable to pay back the loans and fall into a debt trap, in which China will take over the rights on a key piece of infrastructure. But for China, too, the ambitious rail project would lose strategic value as a major logistics artery if it remains incomplete. With the Chinese economy showing signs of slowing, there are indications that Belt and Road projects will not be immune to budget scrutiny. How long China will continue to provide financial assistance is unclear.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=101...e=1&theater BREAKING: Singapore and Malaysia to build high-speed rail link between S'pore and KL to enhance business and cultural ties. PM Lee says new KL-SG rail link will be "gamechanger" & transform the way people from both countries interact.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/kl-singapore-high-speed-rail-may-miss-2020-deadline-says-report KL-Singapore high-speed rail may miss 2020 deadline, says report. Published: 27 April 2015 2:21 PM The multi-billion ringgit high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore is expected to miss its 2020 deadline by two years, Singapore's Business Times reported today. Citing unnamed sources, the business paper said 2022 may be a more realistic deadline as there were many unresolved issues in the mammoth project, which is estimated to cost nearly RM40 billion. "This (the delay) is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a huge project. More time is needed to sort some aspects out so that it can take off smoothly," a source close to the project was quoted as saying by The Business Times. It added that the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project may be awarded on a negotiated basis, but said this had yet to be confirmed. In 2013, Singapore and Malaysia agreed to build a high-speed train track by 2020 which would reduce the travel time on land between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to just 90 minutes compared with up to eight hours now. The construction of the high-speed rail link is expected to start in 2016, with the Cabinet approving the project and the establishment of MyHSR Corp Sdn Bhd – a Finance Ministry unit tasked with undertaking the project – just last week. Seven stations have been identified: Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Seremban, Ayer Keroh, Muar, Batu Pahat and Nusajaya. The project is one of the entry point projects listed under the Economic Transformation Programme which states that it is "aimed at improving the economic dynamism of Malaysia’s capital city and liveability ranking relative to other global cities". Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said Japan was keen to be involved in the project, and that he had heard China had also expressed interest. – April 27, 2015.

seriously I still cant figure how the driver did it. luck the car "balanced" and didnt flip into the tunnel http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sg...ts_baffled.html

Is our multi-billion world-class trains falling apart? By the way this time round never use the trusty cable ties meh? [laugh] From CNA: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/sin...1185055/1/.html Second incident of falling rail clip Posted: 24 February 2012 2013 hrs

CNA news report : Rail component comes off train track SINGAPORE: A small rail component measuring about 10 centimetres came off along the tracks near the Jurong East station, on Monday afternoon. The rail component will be replaced on Monday night after passenger service. A spokesman for SMRT said the incident took place at about 1.20pm. Train service was not affected. The spokesman added SMRT engineers have checked that it is safe for operations. - CNA/wk Hmmmmm......Cable Tie Not That Strong Afterall..........

ICT included boh? High or low key? Oops... only SPF not SAF...

What do you think? Install a rail gun in the car bumper + camera for aiming If some idiot block your way or play punk with you. Then shoot the gun and burst his tyres!! Too bad for him....lol..... Its relatively easy to construct a rail gun can it can be charged using the car alternator!! Then just use nails as ammo.

Has anyone travel on the Malaysian rail tourism packages as advertised on TV? Looks interesting so planning to take one of the packages end of yr. Want to have a taste of how rural life living is like & the package is not too expensive.

Thinking of changing seat for my ride, where can I get modification done to fit the seat onto my stock rail? Thanks.

Hi Starlet Brothers, I'm planning to buy over my friend's eg6 seats to install on my starlet. Any Bros have any idea where I can get a custom seat rail done? Appreciate all your suggestions

Just got a sparco seat from my friend. any idea where I can get a custom seat rail done? Original very ex leh.