The Department of Transportation (DOTr) announced on Tuesday that the MRT-3 will suspend passenger operations for four weekends from July to September to fast-track the replacement of its rails.
According to the DOTr, the suspended weekend operations will cover the following dates:
July 4-5
August 8-9
August 21-23
September 12-13
The DOTr said that the completion of rail replacement will gradually increase the train’s operating speed from 40kph to 60kph by December 2020. Headway or the interval between trains, meanwhile, will gradually decrease to 3.5 minutes.
“Rail replacement works to be done during the weekend suspension include turnout works for both the southbound and northbound tracks at North Avenue and Taft Avenue stations. Turnouts are used to enable trains to switch from one track to another,” it said in a statement.
It added that the suspension of the train’s weekend operations will also enable Sumitomo-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the service provider for MRT-3’s comprehensive rehabilitation, to perform rail destressing, rerailing, turnouts replacement, resurfacing, rail profile grinding, ballasting and tamping, and other major works for MRT-3’s trains, electrical systems, and other subsystems.
To accommodate MRT-3’s passengers during the weekend, MRT-3, together with DOTr Road Sector and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, will implement its bus augmentation program.