LRMC expedites rehab of railway system

MANILA, Philippines – The operator of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT 1) is looking to accelerate rehabilitation programs of the railway system to ensure the safety of passengers. 

“With the conditions of a 33-year old light rail system which it took over in September 2015 from the Light Rail Transit Authority, the company is expediting rehabilitation programs to improve the safety and reliability of the LRT 1 trains and railway system for the comfort and convenience of its passengers,” Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) said.

The statement was made after a two-car southbound train of the LRT 1 lost power supply while approaching the Central station on Tuesday morning.

LRMC said the LRT 1 train which lost power supply was hauled by another train to the passenger terminal to facilitate the safe evacuation of passengers.

Passengers of the said train were unloaded at Platform number one of the Central Terminal.

When power supply is lost as in this case, trains still have a safety feature where two doors could still be opened manually for each car on the platform side to allow for the safe and orderly evacuation of passengers during emergencies. These are doors number one and number five for southbound and doors number six and number 10 for northbound.

While LRMC’s technician instructed passengers inside the vehicle to manually activate the emergency lever and push the door open, the door could not be opened. 

LRMC said “the probable cause for the door not opening was that the emergency lever was not fully activated.”

Based on the checks conducted on the two-car train at the depot by the LRMC, both the door and the emergency lever were found to be in normal operating condition.

“LRMC understands what the passengers had to go through and reiterates that their safety is the foremost priority especially in emergencies,” the company said.

Earlier this month, the LRT 1 received flak from netizens after a passenger posted a video on Facebook of one of the trains running at full speed with an open door.

LRMC has apologized for the faulty door and vowed to continue to work to ensure the safety of passengers. 

LRMC is a consortium of Metro Pacific Investments Corp.’s Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) PTE Ltd.

The consortium took over the operations of the LRT Line 1 which spans Roosevelt station in Quezon City until Baclaran station in Pasay City after being awarded the P65-billion LRT 1 Cavite Extension, Operation and Maintenance Project under the public-private partnership program.