NINE individuals from the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) City Sdn Bhd visited the Sungai Buloh Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Depot on 13 April 2018. TRX City is the master developer of Tun Razak Exchange, Malaysia’s upcoming financial district.

The visit to the facility was to further understand the concept and design of MRT’s facilities and the way it monitors and manages the MRT service.

As Malaysia Rapid Transit Corporation Sdn Bhd (MRT Corp) is the Project Owner for the MRT service, MRT Sungai Buloh-Kajang (SBK) Line Defect Liability Period Director Mr Tarenjit (Tom) Singh Khella led the visitors around the facility and was accompanied by MRT SBK Line Operator Rapid Rail Sdn Bhd Chief Operating Officer Encik Azmi Mohd Zain.

To begin proceedings of the visit, Tom explained the layout of the depot. He explained that the 66-hectare depot will cater for both trains for the MRT SBK Line and also the upcoming MRT Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya (SSP) Line. For the SBK Line, there are a total of 58 trains that had been purchased by MRT Corp with 42-44 trains being operational during the peak periods of operations.

The Sungai Buloh Depot is one of two train depots for the SBK Line. The other train depot is located at the southern alignment of the service in Kajang. This depot is where light maintenance of the trains is being done.

With regard to the TRX City development, Tom went on to explain that the Tun Razak Exchange MRT Station caters for both the MRT SBK Line and MRT SSP Line. Design of the station is that it has stacked platforms. This means that one floor of the station caters for the northern bound of the alignment, whereas the other floor caters for the southern alignment.

A visit to the observation deck of the Operations Control Centre (OCC) was then on the cards. Here, explanation about the live movement tracking of the trains was shown to the visitors. They were duly impressed with the live feed that the OCC has of the trains.

Azmi explained that data from the automatic fare collection gates can also be obtained from each individual station. This feature will enable Rapid Rail to monitor the activity of users using the MRT service and gather information about the busiest stations.

The visit ended with a walkabout of the Rolling Stock Maintenance Office and stabling yard. These two facilities are where the trains are maintained upon completion of operations and also tested before operations commences.

MRT Corp presented a token of appreciation to TRX City Sdn Bhd as a gesture of gratitude for their presence to the depot.