Bishan MRT Station

 NS17  CC15 
Bishan MRT Station
碧山地铁站
பீஷான்
Stesen MRT Bishan
Rapid transit

Circle Line (Dhoby-Ghaut-Bound) platform of Bishan MRT Station
Station statistics
Address 200 Bishan Road
17 Bishan Place
Singapore 579827/ 579842
Lines
  North South Line
  Circle Line
Connections Bus, Taxi
Structure Underground
Levels 4
Platforms Side (North South Line)
Island (Circle Line)
Tracks 4
Other information
Opened 7 November 1987 (North South Line)
28 May 2009 (Circle Line)[1]
Accessible
Code NS17 / CC15
Services
Preceding station   Mass Rapid Transit   Following station
towards Jurong East
 North South Line
towards Marina Bay
towards Dhoby Ghaut
 Circle Line
towards HarbourFront
Location

Bishan MRT Station (NS17/CC15) is a Singapore Mass Rapid Transit interchange station along the North South Line and the Circle Line that serves the Bishan community, especially that of Bishan East. The station is located in Central Singapore, along Bishan Road, close to the town centre of Bishan. It is often filled with students during in weekdays 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. On the North South Line, some trains from Bishan Depot arrive at platform B of the station to travel southbound towards Marina Bay for evening peak period services. It is operated by SMRT Corporation. Commuters will be able to transfer from one line to the other via an underpass that links the Circle Line platform to the two separate platforms at the North South Line.

Contents

Cultural impact

Being located at a former cemetery zone called Bi Shan Teng (Peck San Theng), the station is 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. The Circle Line side of this station also have the Art in Transit artwork Move!. This artwork sees three murals created by Soh Ee Shaun depicting landmarks that residents of Bishan can identify with.

Circle Line linkage and changes to the station

Construction was done for the station to be linked to the Circle Line. This enables passengers to travel to the North-East region of Singapore by train without traveling to the city, i.e. the travelling time from Serangoon to Bishan is shortened to 5 minutes from 29 minutes on 28 May 2009. The Circle Line Station is perpendicular to the North South Line station. The station is adjacent to the Junction 8 Shopping Centre and will be linked altogether when Exit E opens.

A new air-conditioned southbound platform to serve the southbound trains (heading towards Marina Bay Station) was opened on 27 July 2008. The original platform is now dedicated only to northbound train services (heading towards Jurong East via Woodlands). A wall now separate the southbound tracks and the northbound platform, and southbound train doors no longer open towards the old platform. The northbound platform was also upgraded with air conditioning and full height platform screen doors and was officially completed on 22 May 2009 when the air-conditioning was turned on and the platform screen doors started operation.

Bishan is one of the two underground stations currently to have side platforms, the other station being Braddell MRT Station. Though the layout of the station used to have an island platform, it was converted to side platforms to make it easier for transfers to the Circle Line. Once the Downtown MRT Line opens in 2013, Chinatown will also have side platforms due to space-constraint problems.

Bishan is also one of the two MRT stations operational with a station exit located on a platform, the other being Expo. When open, Exit E on the southbound platform towards Marina Bay will be the second of such exits and this will also make Bishan the second station to have faregates available on the same level as the platforms, after Changi Airport.

Before the Circle Line section of the station was constructed, it was the only underground station without air-conditioning and platform screen doors. It was possible to see the surroundings of the stations before the platform screen doors was built as it is the only station in the MRT system to completely rest on terra firma though the station is below sea level.

Noise Barriers

Due to the noise because of the close proximity of the tunnel entrance near the station to Block 503, Bishan Street 11, which may cause disturbance to residents, LTA has decided to install two-metre tall barriers, stretching 180 metres which will be insulated with noise absorptive materials such as rock wool. Construction is expected to start in September and completed by second quarter of 2012.[1]

Train service

Destination First Train Last Train
Mon - Sat Sunday &
Public Holiday		 Daily
North South Line
to NS1 Jurong East 6.06am 6.19am 12.05am
to NS7 Kranji - - 12.23am
to NS27 Marina Bay 5.38am 6.05am 11.34pm
to NS19 Toa Payoh - - 12.10am
Circle Line
to CC29 HarbourFront 5.23am 5.47am 11.18pm
to CC26 Pasir Panjang - - 11.48pm
to CC23 one-north - - 11.56pm
to CC17 Caldecott - - 12.27am
to CC1 Dhoby Ghaut 5.40am 6.07am 11.35pm
to CC7 Mountbatten - - 12.09am
to CC12 Bartley - - 12.29am
to CE2 Marina Bay - - -

Station Layout

L1 Street Level Bus Stop, Junction 8, 7-Eleven, Citibank, Bishan Bus Interchange
NSL Concourse Faregates, Ticketing Machines, Station Control, Transitlink Counter
B1 Platform A North South Line towards  NS1  EW24  Jurong East via  NS9  Woodlands (→)
Side platform for trains heading to Jurong East; doors will open on the right
Platform B North South Line towards  NS27  CE2  Marina Bay (←)
Side platform for trains heading to Marina Bay; doors will open on the left
B2 Transfer Linkway Escalators to both North South Line platforms, lift to North South Line southbound platform and ticket concourse
CCL Concourse Faregates, Ticketing Machines, Station Control, Transitlink Counter
B3 Platform A Circle Line towards  CC29  NE1  HarbourFront (→)
Island platform, Doors will open on the right
Platform B
Alternate Services		 Circle Line towards  CC1  NS24  NE6  Dhoby Ghaut (←)
Circle Line towards  CE2  NS27  Marina Bay (←)

Bus services

The following bus services available at the bus stops outside Bishan station, along Bishan Road.

Exits

Incidents

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.

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.[2]

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.

2009 Train Breakdown

When the Circle Line first opens on 28 May 2009, trains on both directions towards Bartley and Marymount were disrupted for 13 minutes when a train stopped in the tunnel between Lorong Chuan and Bishan at 2.41 pm. The train had to be manually moved to Bishan where passengers alighted. The defective train was pulled out from service.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b "Circle Line to open 2 days ahead of schedule, fares identical to NEL". Channel NewsAsia. 2009-04-16. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/422710/1/.html. 
  2. ^ "MRT Accidents". GetForMe Singapore. 2006-03-25. http://www.getformesingapore.com/homepage2003/communityissues_singaporemrtaccidents.htm. 
  3. ^ "First day blues for commuters". The Straits Times. 29 May 2009.