BY ALEXANDRIA SAN JUAN
The Light Rail Transit Line 2 (LRT-2) suspended on Thursday its operations after a fire broke out in the electrical room of one of its closed stations.
Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) Spokesperson Hernando Cabrera said the blaze hits the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in the basement of the line’s Santolan Station around 5:10 a.m., Thursday.
According to Cabrera, the UPS is a necessary link to the signaling system between the railway’s control center located at the Santolan depot and the revenue line.
“With the link of the signaling system severed from the Control Center, we cannot safely operate the trains hence the constraint to suspend train operations,” Cabrera said.
Cabrera said the management is now “exploring options” on how to temporarily power up the link, as well as “determine the timeline when shall we be able to resume safe train operations.”
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Fire Protection-Quezon City is yet to determine the cause of the fire as further investigation is still ongoing.
Operations from Santolan to Anonas stations have been suspended since October last year after a fire damaged two rectifier substations in Katipunan and Anonas.
The resumption of the railway’s full operations was initially set in June but was delayed as community lockdowns slowed down repairs.
The 13.8-kilometer long LRT-2 is servicing around 5 million passengers in a month with trains running across 11 stations from Santolan in Marikina City to Recto in Manila when fully operational.
However, the LRTA said that the number of train riders was reduced to at least 450,000 monthly due to limited operations brought by the shut down of the three eastern stations and lesser passenger capacity to observe social distancing protocols amid the pandemic.
Opened in 2003, the LRT-2 is the youngest among the current LRTA monorails and has the shortest routes among the existing railway systems in the country and the main mode of transportation for commuters with destinations along Aurora Boulevard, Araneta Avenue, Marcos Highway, Magsaysay Boulevard, Legarda, and Recto Avenue.
