The Department of Transportation (DOTr) said that the decision to suspend rail operations during the holidays is primarily due to the need for daily maintenance.
Transportation Undersecretary for Railways Jeremy Regino said the daily maintenance of the three Metro railway systems is primary consideration in the decision to no longer extend operations during the holidays to ensure line reliability and passenger safety.
Responding to calls for extension of the rail systems during the holidays to accommodate workers and Christmas shoppers, Regino clarified that unlike normal vehicles, train cars and its system require daily maintenance.
“Unfortunately, we need maintenance time. Our trains can’t just run like cars. That needs maintenance,” Regino said.
“The trains and the whole [rail system] need daily maintenance. In order to ensure the reliability and safety,” he added.
For instance, to ensure unimpeded nightly maintenance work, the system requires power shutdown even as to guarantee the safety of workers due to the high-voltage powering the train cars.
“For example, for maintenance, we have to do a power shut-off, we will turn off the electricity on the line so that our workers are safe to do maintenance work,” the transport official explained.
“We do this every night because the wagons are high-voltage so we have to do a power shutdown,” he added.
Regino added that an extended period of daily operations will jeopardize the reliability of trains and ultimately the safety of the riding public.
“We can sacrifice maintenance time for one week. But with the long-term sacrifice of maintenance time, we cannot sacrifice the safety of the riding public,” he said.
