The first of 42 new trains for the Circle and North East Lines have reached Singapore and are due to be put into operation from the middle of next year.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday that the first of 24 new Circle Line trains arrived on June 29, while the first of 18 new North East Line trains was delivered on Sunday.
The remaining trains will be delivered in batches before January 2016. All 42 will be in service by the middle of that year to ease crowding and reduce waiting times.
The new trains will undergo "extensive and rigorous testing" before they are allowed into service, said the LTA.
When fully delivered, they will boost fleet capacity by 60 per cent on the Circle Line and 70 per cent on the North East Line.
The squeeze on both lines has become greater in recent years.
The trains will be injected into crowded stretches of both lines, said the LTA.
On the North East Line, a priority is to add services to the weekday morning rush hour to ease the crush experienced by commuters travelling towards Dhoby Ghaut and HarbourFront. Trains currently run every 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 minutes during peak hours on the North East Line, and every four to five minutes during off-peak periods.
On the Circle Line, trains arrive every 3-1/2 minutes during peak hours, and every seven minutes off-peak.
The LTA said a gamut of tests are run on all new trains.
These include visual inspections of the interior and exterior to check for damage that the trains may have suffered during transit.
After that, static tests will be conducted to ensure that systems such as doors, air conditioning and lighting are working properly.
There will also be speed running tests to check the controls for driving, braking and stopping accuracy. Final tests on live tracks will be run before the new trains can be put into service.
The 24 Circle Line trains cost $184 million, while the 18 North East Line trains cost $234.9 million. They were built by Shanghai Alstom Transport Co, a joint venture between French transport firm Alstom and the Shanghai Rail Traffic Equipment Development Co.
This article was first published on July 24, 2014.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.