SINGAPORE - More than half of the 106 latest seventh-generation MRT trains slated for the North-South and East-West lines (NSEWL) lines have entered service, two years after the first unit was deployed.

As at June 29, 61 Alstom Movia R151 trains have entered service, a spokesperson for the Land Transport Authority (LTA) told The Straits Times.

With three new trains being introduced monthly since October 2024, up from two per month in 2023, the train fleet renewal is expected to be complete by 2026.

The first

R151 trains entered service in June 2023.

The new trains replace the first-generation Kawasaki Heavy Industry (KHI) trains. In September 2024, the failure of a KHI train crippled service along a stretch of the East-West Line for six days, in one of the worst disruptions in Singapore’s rail history.

Transport operator SMRT, which runs the line, was fined $3 million by the LTA.

A delay in new train delivery, stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, was cited by SMRT as a reason for the KHI trains remaining in use and the operator extending the interval between overhauls beyond the manufacturer’s requirement.

The LTA said that there are 16 KHI trains in service on the NSEWL.

By September, these trains will be phased out, according to a post by SMRT on its Facebook page on June 23.

Designed in Germany, the new R151 trains are assembled in Changchun, China.

They have built-in condition monitoring capabilities and diagnostic systems that can pick up faults early and track the performance of various systems in real time.

The cars have bigger open spaces to increase passenger capacity while mai...