More woes seen for MRT

MANILA, Philippines -  An administration lawmaker yesterday warned passengers of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) to brace for more breakdowns and accidents, as the measures to improve the train system and open new lines would take years to complete.

Valenzuela City Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian said the new coaches for MRT-3 would be arriving in 2016, while the
new MRT-7 traversing
Commonwealth Ave. in Quezon City will be completed in 2018.

Meanwhile, MRT Holdings (MRTH) warned that the plan of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to purchase coaches from China’s CNR Dalian Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co. Ltd., which has no experience in such equipment, may lead to more accidents and disruptions since these coaches may not be compatible with the MRT structure.

MRTH is the owner of the MRT while the DOTC operates the system, and Autre Porte Technique Global Inc. (APT Global) is the maintenance provider.

MRTH spokesman David Narvasa said the upgrade is not the immediate solution to the recurring situation of train breakdowns.

“The solution to the safety issue is to get a qualified maintenance provider that is financially and technically capable,” Narvasa said.

The MRT’s former interim maintenance contractor said the traction motors of the commuter train system, which are being used beyond its 1.5 million-kilometer life span, may be blamed for the frequent breakdowns.

Roehl Bacar, president and chief executive officer of Comm Builders and Technology (CB&T) Philippines, said there was really no mystery to the problems of the MRT line.

“We have warned against many deteriorating parts and obsolete spare parts of the various systems,” Bacar said.

He pointed out these warnings were all basically ignored by the DOTC and the MRTC.

He said the average lifespan of traction motors – the equivalent of engines in motor vehicles – was 1.5 million kilometers.

Ideally, they should be replaced before reaching that point, he said.

“The traction motors of the MRT are now beyond 1.6, 1.7 million,” Bacar said.

Bacar earlier blamed the communications glitch that stopped the MRT from late in the morning and for the rest of the day last Aug. 23 to the already deteriorated signaling system of the line, which he said has obsolete crucial spare parts.

The train breakdowns, Bacar said, were obviously a result of the worn out traction motors of the line.

“It was one of the findings in our system audit that we conducted when we assumed as interim maintenance contractor. We’re now in the third quarter of 2014, so the traction motor has logged in hundreds of thousands of kilometers more. It’s really no wonder that we’re having all these trains stalling incidents,” he said.

CB&T Philippines, in consortium with PH Trams, had been interim maintenance contractor of the MRT from October 2012 up to August 2013, succeeding previous contractor Sumitomo-TES Philippines which had provided maintenance starting from when the line opened in 1999 up to October 2012.

Current MRT maintenance contractor APT Global took over in August 2013, when it bagged the one- year contract bid out by the DOTC last year.

The findings on the worn out traction motors were just one of many raised by CB&T in their October 2012 to February 2013 audit report.

CB&T is currently the maintenance contractor for LRT Line 1 running from Baclaran in Parañaque to Roosevelt-EDSA in Quezon City.

Bacar said the MRT needs actual upgrades of its aging systems that were not properly maintained by the long-time former sub-contractor Sumitomo-TES Philippines from 1999 to 2012.

Long-term solutions sought

A consumers’ group yesterday urged the government to come up with long-term, lasting solutions to the problems of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) system.

The National Coalition of Filipino Consumers (NCFC) believes that the solution to the worsening situation of the MRT will not be found by government officials taking the “MRT challenge” by riding the train during rush hours. – Paolo Romero, Rainier Allan Ronda