So it is all about collector shoe problem. The power failure and damage to the rail tracks were caused by the collector shoes. And the trains have been running for 24 years without major breakdowns or this kind of frequency until these few days.
Logical deduction, simplified, is that the collector shoes have reached their operating lives and need to be replaced as they were working fine for 24 years, only starting to fail.
Another deduction, the shoes have recently been changed. If that be the case, either the new shoes were installed wrongly or the new shoes were faulty.
And better beef up on the standby power system and test them on a fully packed train and see how effective is the ventilation and how long it will last. This is critical as it can be deadly.
SMRT must know that though its primary mission is to provide efficient and fairly priced public transport system, some may also want to add maximise profits for the shareholders, her other major responsibility is commuters' safety. Commuters safety cannot be compromised for profits.
ReplyDeleteAnd hope the realisation of this does not offer a good reason to bloat up the cost and fare prices.
Uncle Bean,
ReplyDeleteLobang for you,try selling generator set .Go and tell SMRT to have a individual Gen Set on each train.Gen. set can provide power should any future incident happen again.It should not be link to the train.
Hurry up,before some one thought of that.
Shhh..dun tell anyone.
How can it be that there is no standby power to operate the airconditioners and lighting really boggles the mind.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, how did some people get out of the train if the doors are also electrically operated? Did they pried them open like lift doors?
There seems to be a lot of funny phrases/descriptions popping up like 'third rail' and 'shoes'. What the hell are they talking about? Trying to make it confusing so that people cannot understand the problem? Why can't they provide information more understandable and that makes some sense to ordinary folks?
ReplyDeleteLOL, if you can't resolve the issue and are totally clueless and can't convince people, heck just throw in lots of jargon to confuse them.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Temasek Review is back!
http://www.tremeritus.com/
One other possibility - sabotage by insiders who are too sick of that fat lady.
ReplyDeleteS_ure M_ust R_etool T_rack
ReplyDeleteS_oon M_ay R_equire T_rimming
S_ack M_ore R_edundant Trash
S_icko M_atilah R_equires T_humping
ReplyDelete"There seems to be a lot of funny phrases/descriptions popping up like 'third rail' and 'shoes'. What the hell are they talking about? Trying to make it confusing so that people cannot understand the problem? Why can't they provide information more understandable and that makes some sense to ordinary folks?"
ReplyDeleteLet me summarise for you. The network is NOT PROPERLY MAINTAINDED. But of course, they cant say that. They need to use big words hoping that you would just nod and nod and all these will blow away quicky
It could be more sinister. Why a sudden spate of breakdowns, so many shoes faulty, even the track was damaged.
ReplyDeleteThe shoes and tracks were perfectly okay for 24 years. The shoes went faulty like clockwork, all at the same time. Then it is not easy to damage the track to such an extent within a few days. The routine maintenance checks would have discovered them before they got so bad.
What is it they are not telling us?
How important is to have a truly accountable and fully transparent government? With Official Secret Act, absolutely no vital, raw and true information are open to and accessible by the public. The truth is only covered up within a small group of elites and others who know cannot tell the truth to the public. With such a top secret system, do you trust this government? I will give my non-confidence vote to this government.
ReplyDeleteReported in MSM:
ReplyDeleteSMRT Chief Executive Saw Phiak Hwa admitted her company wasn’t properly prepared for the emergency.
“It’s not something that we could foresee it could happen,” Saw said Friday.
It shows she does not understand engineering because there is this safety analysis and procedure to assess failure and emergency regardless whether such failure may occur remotely. If SMRT is to be operated in such a way as what she said, there will expect more serious incident to come later, perhaps many people could did for it. Perhaps, those in power think that SMRT is unlike SIA that requires very strict safety procedure and fails to realize the consequence.
In the recent incident, some 'hero' broke the train window to get fresh air in. Did this person know what if there are deadly gases like methane in the tunnel? The commuters in the whole train can just die because of poisonous gases.
Business Times Dec 17. Shenton Way crowd loses its cool. I was flabbergasted by the last para ... In SMRT defense, first major catastrophic event in 24 years, Singapore housewife Kylie Lee Wearnes was quoted as saying Singapore should just let go. How pathetic and moronic!
ReplyDeleteBusiness Times Dec 19. Trains to run slower as rail culprit is revealed. Reporter is simply reporting and not digging deep. SMRT had declared after the 2 incidents that regular inspections were conducted, including the 3rd rail. Surely a competent operationl agency would have discovered the 21 dropped claws, 34 damaged 3rd rail covers and "some" damaged trains during the earlier regular inspections.
Ms Saw appears to have delivered profit at the expense of service (and safety).
Hi TSS, welcome to the blog. The discovery of the 21 drop claws is frightening. Any routine checks/inspection would have found them unless someone is sleeping.
ReplyDeleteI will hazard another observation. Is the problem caused by shoes or by the tracks? The thing that it happened only in one location says that there is something wrong with the location. The shoes could damage all the tracks along the way. Why only in the tunnel area?
The discovery of the drop claws makes the picture a bit clearer. Now, did the claws drop off over a period of time, and not discovered due to maintenance lapses? Or more frightening, over night, all at one go, and maintenance has no chance to pick them up. Now how can so many claws dropped off over one or two nights and escaped the attention of the maintenance/inspection crew on their rounds?
Now, what anon 1:22 said is even more frightening. Did Saw really said that the breakdown is unexpected, unforeseeable? How a train system can breakdown is difficult to foretell or expect. But breaking down and preparing to evacuate passengers are elementary. Every big building also has such drill, to evacuate on an emergency. Not preparing for it, to say that it is unexpected is grossly xWS#$$. I don't believe she would admit such a thing in public. I find it unbelieveable.
Anon 1:22, please confirm that she really said it. Thanks.
How to settle this? Instead od everyone trying to play "engineer" (and most of you fuckers aren't), what is required is INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION. Not a bunch of half past six bozo journalists writing shit they don't understand. (because they're not engineers)
ReplyDeleteSg. Gov got plenty money. Hire the best forensic team and just get the truth out.
Next step: start the civil and criminal actions in the courts. Sue a few people, send some of them off to jail.
Matilah, nobody is claiming to be an engineer here lah. Just looking at the facts on the table and trying to be logical, and thinking a little bit. You don't need high intelligence to be logical.
ReplyDeleteTo hang someone, you need an expert or someone with the authority to do it. Yes a commission of Inquiry is needed to do that kind of job.
Oh, forgot to reply to agongkia's money making opportunity. I copy this reply using the template.
UPS is common and is being sold everywhere. The trains definitely have them to provide some power for emergency use. Don't think they have one big enough to move trains. But they definitely have some that could provide good ventilation for at least two hours.
@redbean
ReplyDelete> You don't need high intelligence to be logical. <
No, but you need to ensure that your facts are first verified independently by a "blinded" (i.e. uninfluenced) 3rd, 4th, 5th...etc party.
Proper engineering procedures go through the processes of ascertaining the veracity of the o-called "evidence".
Hence you fuckers are "playing" engineer, as I originally conjectured.
I think the systematic failure of SMRT in the last few days is surely caused by overload.
ReplyDeleteRemember they added more trains to the routes every now and then? A packed train could carry 100 more passengers, or about 6 tonnes extra. How about the weight of the carriage, maybe 2 tonnes. Total 8 to ten tonnes of loading. Remember each time you add a train you increase the stop time at stations due to more passengers. So to compensate you also increase the train speed!!
It;s just like a washing machine designed for 5 kg load but you stuff it with 8 kg of stuffs. It'll work ok for a few days, but not more.
Sack the CEO, or have commission of inquiry can't solve this problem.
Only way is to go by the design specs., reduce the loading and admit to poorer service standards in train frequencies vs. passengers demand. What to do. We have to suffer the consequence of slowdown of everything, in the first place, nobody said singapore has space for 6 million people.
bumbling idiotic politicians cause all this irreversible problems.
zero
Hi zero, welcome to the blog. What we are seeing and experiencing is systemic fault not so much of engineering, but systemic in our political system.
ReplyDeleteAs for Matilah, you tried so hard to sound logical but kept confusing yourself. None of us are down there investigating the problem. We are just gossiping based on the little information from the media. And you kept insisting that we are playing engineer. And you know engineer would have to approach the problem mechanically and systematically.
Say you are not so bright you get angry. Say you smart, not really.
So how, say you stupid and clever can?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteredbean
ReplyDeleteOK, the title of this article is "Making sense out of the information available"
...so you are right. You are all just gossiping and talking cock. Playing not only role of engineer, but also lawyer, philosopher, managerial ex-spurt, angry citizen, and conspiracy theorist.
And I use the word "play" in its true child-like context: like kids "playing" masak-masak.
Whenever Matilah resort to vulgarity on anyone, oh he called it his calling card, take a pat and give yourself a smile. For you have just floored Matilah and his calling card is his saving grace.
ReplyDeleteNever see you work so hard and sweat so much in one morning : )
///
ReplyDeleteSMRT = Sustain More Ridiculous Troubles
S_ure M_ust R_etool T_rack
S_oon M_ay R_equire T_rimming
S_ack M_ore R_edundant Trash ///
Given, the above, there is only one thing left to do:
Saw Must Resign Today
Thanks The for the quote. But the reality is :
ReplyDeleteUgly face (no.1) will tell the ugly butchto : S_aw M_ust R_emain T_ough