THERE was a lot of confusion for hundreds of commuters who took Light Rail Transit (LRT) trains from Ampang and Sri Petaling heading into the city yesterday morning as they were left stranded at the Chan Sow Lin station.
Richard Nair, 56, who works in a legal firm said that he arrived at the Maluri station yesterday morning to find the station more packed than usual.
“I had to wait until the third train into town before I could board as even the trains were unusually full,” Richard said.
Quick fix: RapidKL employees working hard to fix the vehicle. Sharon Sasha, who was taking a train from Sri Petaling, did not notice anything out of the ordinary until she went to the counter to purchase her ticket.
“When I went to the counter at about 8am to buy my ticket, I was informed that I could only go as far as the Bandaraya station but they did not say why,” Sharon, 30, said.
Both trains stopped at Chan Sow Lin and left the passengers on the already packed platforms and it was not easy to get out due to the crowd and the lack of proper instructions.
Richard said he was told that there were no extra feeder buses stationed at the congested station.
“No compensation was offered either even though they checked everyone’s tickets as they left the station,” Richard said.
Chaotic situation: Many commuters were stuck in the Chan Sow Lin station as the crowd made it hard to get off the platform. He added that as he was walking towards Puduraya, he noticed a steady stream of people walking along with him.
Sharon, however, managed to get return trip coupons that station personnel were handing out at a counter she passed on her way out of the station.
Both had no idea what had caused the delay.
Joel Chong, 20, a student, took the train from Ampang and arrived at the Bandaraya station at about 10.30am. He said he had heard an announcement saying that the trains were delayed.
“The trains stopped longer than usual at the stations and sometimes slowed down while moving but other than that, nothing out of the ordinary happened,” said Chong, whose train ride took him past the Chan Sow Lin station.
People who travelled in the opposite direction from Sentul Timur fared no better.
“Everyone, regardless of which direction they wanted to travel, had to take the train from a single platform because only one train was in service on one side of the tracks,” Wendy Rogers, 60, a guest teacher who took the train from PWTC until Bandaraya said.
RapidKL says shuttle trains were provided
RAPIDKL group communications general manager Ebi Azly Abdullah said in a statement that the RapidKL Ampang Line LRT service had suffered a major service disruption yesterday between the Sultan Ismail and Sentul Timur stations.
The disruption, which began at 6am, was caused by the breakdown of a track maintenance vehicle between the PWTC and Titiwangsa stations.
To help commuters reach their destinations, RapidKL arranged for shuttle trains from Chan Sow Lin to Bandaraya and Sri Petaling/Ampang to Chan Sow Lin.
Feeder bus services were also provided to help ferry passengers from Bandaraya to the Sentul Timur station.
At 8.40am, service between Sri Petaling/Ampang and Sultan Ismail was back to normal.
However, passengers were still being ferried from Sultan Ismail to Sentul Timur at that time.
Services on the Ampang Line LRT resumed normal operations at 11.04am.
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