SINGAPORE — The Land Transport Authority (LTA) will build a new testing centre where it can check trains and railway systems without affecting daily passenger services on the main MRT lines.

The new Integrated Train Testing Centre (ITTC) will be located at the site of the former Raffles Country Club, and it will be equipped to test trains and other core railway systems, such as electrical and signalling systems, around the clock, the LTA said in a statement on Wednesday (April 24).

The land on which the Raffles Country Club used to sit on was originally acquired for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) facilities. The HSR project has been deferred by two years to May 2020. 

Apart from testing trains and railway systems, the ITTC can also perform other functions such as training railway workers before they are deployed, performing mid-life train refurbishments, and conducting research and development into railway technologies.

HOW IT BENEFITS COMMUTERS

LTA will be able to conduct train tests at the centre before they are deployed on operational lines, and so passenger services will not be affected. In recent years, the operation hours of MRT stations had been shortened for extended periods to allow for more engineering hours. 

“This approach frees up precious engineering hours for other activities, such as railway maintenance, and reduces the need for future early closures and late openings,” said Mr Chua Chong Kheng, LTA deputy chief executive (infrastructure and development).

The centre will also help LTA speed up the diagnosis and rectification of faults, as troubleshooting can now be done locally, he added.

Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan told reporters that the authorities realised the importance of building such a centre as "part of the lessons we learnt when we re-signalled the North-South and subsequent East-West lines". 

Without such centres, testing would be reliant on the original equipment manufacturer and its testing centre, which is usually overseas. "To have an on-site testing centre, there are many benefits. Otherwise you are forced to test a new system on a live system with all its attendant risks," said Mr Khaw. 

"Or if you dare not do that, then you do it during engineering hours, but then you are fighting for time for that three to four hours a day." 

WHAT’S NEXT

The LTA will call a contract to design and build the centre over the next few months, with construction expected to start in mid-2020.  

The facility will start receiving trains for Circle Line 6 around end-2022, the LTA added.

Such testing centres are already present in other countries with extensive rail networks such as Germany, Korea and Japan.