THE Light Rail Transit (LRT) says it does not need to improve security despite an apparently malicious attack which derailed a peak-hour train. The railway is the only one in Hong Kong not to have closed circuit cameras on its platforms and is the only one hit by regular if infrequent vandalism attacks. But the company said it was taking all precautions necessary. 'We have daily patrols checking to make sure there is nothing obstructing the tracks and our drivers are instructed to keep watch to see that no one is tampering with the tracks,' an LRT spokesman said. The train service was quite frequent so it was unlikely someone would have a chance to cause any trouble, the spokesman said. However, on Thursday night during the height of the rush hour vandals apparently placed rocks on the track near Shek Pai station. A route 610 light rail car was derailed at 6.20 pm disrupting traffic for almost four hours. It was the second such incident in the railway's history, with the first happening over five years ago. 'It is not a very serious problem. We do have vandalism such as children kicking in ticket vending machines or writing inside the trains,' the LRT spokesman said, but was unable to provide any figures. The Kowloon Canton Railway said it was unaware of any such incidents. 'Our tracks are not very accessible. People would have to jump down off the station platform to get to them and because our stations are more closely monitored by CCTV it is not very easy to get to the track area.' Vandalism on platforms was not a problem either, the KCR spokesman said, because of the cameras and the numbers of people using the stations. The Mass Transit Railway said it was unaware of anyone causing malicious damage to the railway which could cause a threat to safety and that other kinds of vandalism were very rare.
