Signal problem blamed on second day of delays for MTR commuters
East Rail service is disrupted for second consecutive day after tracking system failure, leaving morning commuters stranded and frustrated
The MTR East Rail service came to a complete halt for the second day in a row yesterday amid further problems with the system showing the trains' location.
Railway managers stopped the service in the morning rush hour after "flashes" in the backup monitoring system - in use since Sunday's incident - froze images on the screens.
The seven-minute stoppage, though shorter than Sunday's half-hour shutdown, still sparked anger among passengers.
"[The MTR] said 'Please forgive us'. I'm absolutely not forgiving them," one man said.
It also brought an accusation of negligence from Michael Tien Puk-sun, chairman of the Legislative Council's railways subcommittee. Tien said the MTR had failed to do regular test runs on its backup system.
"If your backup system doesn't work when you need it, it's useless," he said. "You need to do test runs from time to time to see whether the backup will switch on automatically when the system fails."
An MTR spokesman said the service resumed after the system was "restored" and an investigation was under way to find out what had caused the problem.