The KCRC has promised that track unevenness blamed for putting excessive stress on the components of East Rail trains will be eliminated.
Track purchases for lines now follow a new, European standard that will prevent the imperfections that place stress on train components.
Senior director of capital projects Lee Kang-kuen said track unevenness such as that on East Rail was thought to have a greater impact on high-speed trains than on the medium-speed units used by the KCRC, but perceptions had changed.
'In the past 10 years, the industry has become aware that [unevenness] might actually be a problem, so back in early 2000 they worked out a draft of the standard and put some specification on undulations. As a result, an international standard based on the European standard was published in 2004,' he said.
Chief executive James Blake said the problem would not recur because since 2004 all track for new projects had been required to comply with the new European standard. This could not be done earlier as the detailed requirements were not available.
Investigations into the fractures found on 258 East Rail train components blamed welding imperfections and unevenness found on 36 per cent of the rail track as the causes of the problem.
The batch of faulty track was bought in 1998 and 1999 under a track-renewal programme. Although the faulty rails had undulations of less than 1 millimetre in every 3.1-metre length, their irregular shape had created a springboard effect on the trains and imposed stresses double what the suspension system could bear.