2 wrecked LRT trains removed from tracks

MANILA, Philippines - Two Light Rail Transit (LRT) trains were removed yesterday from the elevated tracks along EDSA in Quezon City, where they collided Friday.

LRT Administration spokesman Hernando Cabrera said while the Roosevelt station was shut down after Friday’s collision, the Balintawak station will also be temporarily unavailable. He said the reverse track for the train to transfer to the other side of the lane once it reaches the station in Balintawak could not be activated.

“It turned out that the power supply of the two stations (the one in Balintawak and the one in Roosevelt) are connected. (Since the one in Roosevelt is not working) there’s no way the reversing track in Balintawak could be reactivated,” Cabrera said.

According to Cabrera, the two stations accommodate a total of P28,000 passengers daily and the loss of income from the shutdown is about P500,000. He said the one that is working at the moment is the reversing track for the Monumento station. Cabrera said the two trains will be checked if they are fit to run along the tracks again.

“Definitely the Roosevelt station will not be used until we’ve finished with the investigation, until we’ve checked the damage caused by the incident, until we’ve repaired the systems and our security officers have issued certification that it can be used already,” he said.

Repair operations caused traffic buildup along North Edsa yesterday. A U-turn slot was opened to accommodate more vehicles and allow them to do a counterflow along one lane of the road.  

The LRTA spokesman said they have yet to determine the cause of the collision, which happened at a portion of the reverse track for the Roosevelt station. “We’re still checking if it was caused by human error or by systems failure,” Cabrera said.

Last Friday, an automatic switch failed to prevent a train from the southbound lane from going into the reverse track. At that time, another train was already on the reverse track and it was hit by the other train. Cabrera said each of the trains has a pedal brake and an emergency brake, which were both working at the time. He said they would check whether these did not work fast enough to prevent the collision. No one was hurt in the incident.