MANILA, Philippines — Two Metro Rail Transit Line 3 were reported to have stalled yesterday, a day after the MRT-3 announced it was finally able to deploy 10 trains.
The MRT-3 said more than 300 commuters were forced to transfer to another train at the Quezon Avenue station during yesterday afternoon’s rush hour after the southbound train carrying them developed signalling problems.
The affected train was taken to the MRT-3 depot in Quezon City for preventive maintenance and replacement of the affected parts.
Another train was not deployed since it also developed problems, bringing the number of operational trains down to eight by 5 p.m. yesterday.
The rail line earlier said it was able to deploy 10 operational trains on Sunday.
“Finally, 10 trains,” MRT-3 operations director Michael Capati said yesterday morning.
The last time the MRT-3 had 10 trains running was on Feb. 4. Since then, the rail line used seven to nine trains per day.
Capati said the MRT-3 deployed 10 operational trains at around 6:40 p.m. Sunday and still had 10 trains as of 11 a.m. yesterday.
The MRT-3 has yet to fulfill the deployment of 15 operational trains, as required by the Maintenance Transition Team, which temporarily replaced the Busan Universal Rail Inc. (BURI) as the rail line’s maintenance provider.
The MRT-3 terminated its contract with BURI due to its alleged poor performance and for failure to procure the spare parts needed for the train cars.
Aly Narvaez, MRT-3 media relations officer, said they plan to deploy 15 operational trains after the Holy Week as they are expected to do preventive maintenance on all of the trains.