Contractor defends MRT work

MANILA, Philippines - The local firm tasked to handle the repair and maintenance work on the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) has defended its performance, saying it cannot be faulted for the system’s decrepit state.

“We had discovered a lot of problems in the various systems because of the many poor maintenance practices of the previous long-time maintenance contractor Sumitomo-TESP (TES Philippines),” Roehl Bacar, president of CB&T Philippines, alleged.

CB&T leads the joint venture consortium that bagged the contract to repair and maintain the MRT along EDSA on an interim basis from October 2012 to August 2013.

He told The STAR they discovered the system’s poor condition shortly after assuming the role of interim maintenance contractor on Oct. 20, 2012.

Kiyoshi Morita, formerly TESP president and now president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Philippines, told The STAR in April that TESP had been out of the picture for years and could not be blamed for the MRT’s operational woes.

“That was two years ago,” he said. He declined further comment.

Filipino firm Aure Porte Technique (APT) Global is the current long-term maintenance contractor for the MRT line on EDSA. CB&T Philippines is the current maintenance contractor for the LRT Line 1.

“The system faults are not due to the incapability of the Filipino contractors but of obsolescence of the sub systems not properly addressed by the owners,” Bacar, who is also a Mandaluyong City councilor, said.

He said they conducted a five-month system assessment and audit of the MRT system, the result of which was explained in detail in a two-inch thick report. He said CB&T submitted copies of the report to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the MRT Corp.

Bacar said the endeavor turned out to be costly as CB&T had to bring in people from the original European equipment manufacturers and suppliers such as French firm Bombardier, which had supplied the line’s signaling system.

“I doubt if we earned money from that contract because of all the costs we had taken on for that audit,” Bacar said, adding that they did not even charge the DOTC for the audit.

“Other consultants would have charged dearly to conduct such a big and comprehensive audit,” Bacar said.

He said that in their assessment, they found out that TESP allegedly committed numerous questionable maintenance actions, including making do with deteriorated parts or equipment or using non-original components such as traction motors, air-conditioning units and wheel and axle assembly.

He said that based on the audit, vital parts were never replaced despite the threats they posed to safety.

“All of the traction motors are beyond their useful life, having logged more than one million kilometers. This is based on the assessment of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Gerken, that rail industry standard requires all of the traction motors be replaced for this model of trains,” the report said. “The actual average mileage of the traction motor in MRT3 is 1,500,000 km.”

Bacar also alleged design flaws in the electrical system as well as the previous maintenance contractor’s cannibalizing Car No. 70 for vital parts for use as “rotational spares.”

“Other parts were transferred to other cars, presumably to cope with spare parts shortage due to lack of plan and the uncertainty of contract extension,” the audit report read.

The report said a design flaw in the electrical system may have triggered the fire in one of the trains near the Kamuning-GMA station in November 2012 or a month after the PH Trams-CB&T joint venture consortium took over as MRT maintenance contractor.

“Upon interim takeover, 60 percent of the controllers are not original parts (OEM), including the sensors. Thirty-nine compressors that are supposed to be operating by pair or simultaneously had become a single unit, resulting to ACU (air-conditioning unit) system loss and inefficiency,” the report read.

“All ACU contactors are burned out and have zero rotational spares,” it added.

“The OEM has constantly reminded the previous maintenance provider that the condenser and evaporator fan motor safety should not be bypassed,” the audit report said.

“Their practice of in-house windings and repair of the motors is never recommended, as it is a definite fire and smoke hazard if the motors overheat during operations,” it also said.

The report also said that worn-out gearbox housings were not properly replaced and maintained and that gear oil and grease used did “not correspond to required usage specifications.”

Ingenuity

Bacar said Filipino rail maintenance contractors deserve credit for keeping the MRT running despite the poor condition of its systems and equipment.

He argued that the persistent glitches that plagued the MRT in the past weeks, especially in the days before the Holy Week, were a result of the MRT management’s alleged failure to address several critical systems issues.

He said such concerns could only be addressed through an upgrade of the systems and not through maintenance.

The CB&T audit group also found flaws in MRT’s rail tracks.

“It is suspected that the composition of the rail is not of European origin and standards,” it said, even as it recommended a “thorough and detailed third party assessment” on the condition of the tracks.

“This will determine whether there is a rail defect due to initial manufacturing imperfections of the rail or track defects that are exclusively a result of train traffic or poor track maintenance of the previous maintenance provider,” it added.

Furthermore, there were deficiencies in the installation of windshields of the MRT trains, the report stated.