Glitch forces LRT-1 to partially shut down
AN “electrical issue” has forced the management of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 to partially disable its train service on Friday morning.
After a brief power outage on Friday, the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) took four hours to make its way back to the tracks.
Hundreds of railway commuters were forced to look for alternative transport after the Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) partially shut down train service at 6:09 a.m.
Train service was limited from Roosevelt Avenue Station to Gil Puyat Avenue Station.
Full operations returned at 10:05 a.m. after engineers managed to fix the glitch.
“As of 10:05 a.m., February 17, 2023, LRT-1 has resumed full operations from Baclaran to Roosevelt Station and vice versa,” LRMC wrote on Twitter.
In a statement, the rail service operator said LRT-1 had a “defective pantograph for a Gen-3 train set between Libertad and EDSA Stations” in the southbound lane at 5:55 a.m.
Accountability
Meanwhile, Sen. Mary Grace Poe on Friday criticized the Department of Transportation for the continued deterioration of the LRT and sought accountability from its officials.
Poe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Services, made the statement after Transport Undersecretary Cesar Chavez told a congressional panel that some 80 of the 120 train coaches that the government procured for LRT 1 Cavite Extension Project in 2017 for P12 billion have water leaks.
Chavez told lawmakers that he made the disclosure to explain the reason why the government withheld payment for the coaches.
“We will hold true the Department of Transportation to its commitment to [making] the supplier remedy the problem to make the coaches usable,” Poe said.
The senator pointed out that the money of the people is involved here, and we cannot just let the train cars gather water and rot while millions of commuters go through the daily travails of commuting.
Chavez later clarified that the contractor had already been paid P6 billion, which leaves a P6 billion balance for the procurement which happened in 2017. However, the trains were delivered in 2021.