Bishan MRT Station
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Bishan MRT Station (NS17/CC15) is the Singaporean Mass Rapid Transit station that serves the Bishan community, especially that of Bishan East. The station is located in Central Singapore. It is located along Bishan Road, close to the town centre of Bishan. It is often filled with students on weekdays in the afternoon as it serves the Ministry of Education Language Centre, a faculty of the Ministry of Education that allows secondary school and junior college students to study their second or third languages that are not available in their own schools. Some trains from Bishan depot arrive at platform B of the station to travel southbound towards Marina Bay for evening peak period service.
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[edit] Accidents
The station is often featured in the news because of the accidents that have happened there. There had been some cases of people falling onto the railway tracks, or involved in accidents with the trains. It has therefore been somewhat reputed as the MRT station that is the most accident-prone.
[edit] 2002 Accident
On Nov 7 2002, a 10-year-old boy was taken to KK Women's and Children's Hospital in the evening, after being dragged by a southbound MRT train along the platform at Bishan MRT station. The child, Moses Tan, had a fractured right leg, a fractured right shoulder, bruises on his limbs and chest, and lacerations on his head after the incident.
[edit] 2004 Accidents
A 31-year-old Chinese man Mr Joseph Tan, a resident of Kim Keat, was found trapped under a train and died after falling on the track in front of an oncoming train in Bishan MRT station at about 1pm on Jul 28 2004. The tragedy disrupted the northbound service between Toa Payoh and Ang Mo Kio MRT stations for about an hour.
The second fatal accident at this station happened when a 74-year-old man, who was a resident of Toa Payoh died when he fell and was hit by an oncoming northbound train at Bishan MRT station in the afternoon of Sep 15 2004. [1]
[edit] 2007 Accident
On 4 March 2007, a man fell onto the tracks of the MRT station. A commuter on the platform pressed the emergency stop plunger and the train driver also braked in time. It was later reported that the man in question was high on drugs and slipped onto the tracks as a result.
[edit] Bus services
Bus services are available at Bishan Bus Interchange located a short distance from the station and at the bus stops along Bishan Road.
| Service | Between | And | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBS Transit Trunk Services | |||
| 13 | Yio Chu Kang Bus Terminal | Upper East Coast Bus Terminal | |
| 88 | Pasir Ris Bus Interchange | Toa Payoh Bus Interchange | |
| 156 | Sengkang Bus Interchange | Clementi Bus Interchange | |
| SMRT Night Rider Services | |||
| NR1 | Yishun Bus Interchange | Temasek Ave (loop) | |
[edit] Station vicinity
- Junction 8 Shopping Centre
- Catholic High School
- Raffles Institution
- Raffles Junior College
- Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Primary School
- Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School
- Ministry of Education Language Centre
- ITE College Central (Bishan)
The station currently lies on the North South Line.
[edit] Circle Line linkage and changes to current station
Construction is currently under works for the station to be linked to the Circle Line. When that is done, the station would serve to be one of the few interchange stations between the North South Line and the Circle Line. This would enable passengers to cut directly to the top part of North East Line at Serangoon station. The future Bishan Circle Line Station will be perpendicular to the current Bishan North-South Line station, adjacent to the Junction 8 Shopping Centre which will soon be linked altogether through future expansion.
A new platform will serve the South bound train (heading towards Marina Bay) and the current North South Line platform will be dedicated to the North bound train (heading towards Jurong East via Woodlands). A wall will be built on the current South bound platform to partition the platform from the new South bound platform on the other side. The upgraded station will be fully air conditioned and platform screen doors will be installed, in a way to prevent commuters from falling onto the tracks, as seen in previous cases in the history of Bishan station, mostly fatal.
As of 27 February 2007 the air-conditioning ducts are being installed, while the new south-bound platform begins to take shape. In addition, the lift serving the platform and the street level is now operational.
[edit] Cultural impact
The station is the only station in the MRT system to completely rest on terra firma and is represented by the middle section of the SMRT logo. Even so, the station is below sea level. One can, however, see the surroundings from the station since it is open-air, unlike other underground stations.
The station is also rumoured to be haunted, and has been the subject of several Singaporean urban legends, as well as the site for allegedly true encounters of ghosts. A local newspaper, The Sunday Times, once ran an article debunking an urban legend associated with the station, but it also ran alongside the article an account by a passenger who claimed that, while riding on a train passing through the station one morning in the early 1990s, she was groped by several unseen hands before passing out. She was later revived by fellow passengers. There are also other alleged encounters of ghosts and other entities by several passengers in and around the station, such as headless figures, footsteps being heard coming from the roof of the train, and phantom passengers that did not cast any reflections on the train windows.
[edit] References
- ^ "MRT Accidents", GetForMe Singapore, 25 March 2006.
| Preceding station | Mass Rapid Transit Lines | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ang Mo Kio | North South MRT Line | Braddell | ||
| Lorong Chuan | Circle Line (under construction) | Marymount | ||
