Around 530 passengers were forced to alight from a Metro Railway Transit 3 train on Monday afternoon after it emitted smoke while on the northbound lane approaching the Santolan station in Quezon City.
“At 4:08 p.m. today [Nov. 4], a smoke emission from one of our trains was reported by our train driver at Santolan Station [Northbound],” MRT 3 management said in a statement.
“Rest assured that our rehabilitation and maintenance provider, Sumitomo-Mitsubishi Heavy, will conduct a thorough investigation regarding this incident, and implement measures to prevent this from happening again. We will apprise you of further updates. We apologize for the inconvenience,” it added.
A female passenger, identified only as Aurora, said: “We were about to board a train here in Santolan station when MRT personnel told us they temporarily stopped the operation because of the problem.”
The incident prompted the MRT management to implement a provisional train service between Shaw Boulevard Station in Mandaluyong City to Taft Avenue in Pasay City.
Eight months ago, an MRT 3 train also unloaded all its passengers between the Cubao and Santolan stations after smoke was noticed underneath it.
In an earlier Monday morning advisory, management said the MRT 3 served 140,046 passengers and recorded an average of 12 running trains at peak hours, with one of the newer Dalian trains running.
Meanwhile, the MRT 3 is offering free rides to passengers 18 years old and younger on Wednesday in connection with the 27th National Children’s Month.
In an advisory posted on Facebook, the management said the offer is available from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Students will have to present their school identification cards to get free train rides.
Last month, the MRT management said it was planning to expand passenger capacity by upgrading its system and putting additional train units.
MRT 3 director for operations engineer Michael Capati said management is optimistic to increase the running trains to 20 from the present 15 in less than two years.
The trains’ travel speed, Capati said, will also be increased from 30 kilometers to 60 kilometers an hour.
When these improvements take place, the headway or waiting time on the platform will be shortened from 7.5 minutes to 3.5 minutes, he added.
The MRT 3 line has 13 stations and commences at North Avenue and ends at Taft Avenue, serving the cities that Epifanio de los Santos Avenue passes through: Quezon City, Mandaluyong, Makati, and Pasay.
It started its operation in 1999 as the country’s second rapid transit line in Metro Manila. It forms part of the rail transport infrastructure, including the Manila Light Rail Transit System composed two lines which are the LRT 1 and MRT 2, and the Metro Commuter Line of the Philippine National Railways.