Trains need holiday downtime maintenance - DOTr

Metro Manila, Philippines – The Department of Transportation said trains need maintenance time in response to calls to extend the operations of the Metro Rail Transit System (MRT) and the Light Rail Transit (LRT) for the holidays.

In a press release, Jeremy Regino, Transportation undersecretary for railways, said trains require daily maintenance.

“Sa maintenance po kailangan naming mag power shut-off, papatayin po namin ang kuryente sa linya para ligtas po ang mga trabahador natin na gumawa ng maintenance work,” he said.

“Ginagawa po natin ito gabi-gabi kasi high-voltage iyong mga bagon kaya kailangan natin mag power shutdown,” Regino added.

[Translation: In maintenance, we need to do a power shut-off. We will turn off the electricity on the line to ensure the safety of our workers who will be doing the maintenance work…We do this every night because the wagons have high voltage, so we need to perform a power shutdown.]

In a press release, the Akbayan party-list urged the agency to rethink its “dismissal” of stretching train hours.

The group also called on the DOTr to hold a comprehensive dialogue with stakeholders to explore options on the extension.

“If our neighbors in Asia can keep their trains running until midnight, there is no reason why we can’t. We must learn from their best practices and adapt them to make our public transport system truly serve the people,” Akbayan party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña said.

The group has earlier launched a signature campaign, moving to extend train operations.

The DOTr, meanwhile, previously announced longer hours for MRT and LRT trains on select days in December.

NewsWatch Plus correspondent Lance Mejico contributed to this report