Shock, chaos as MTR carriage door falls off

MTR services between Wan Chai and Quarry Bay stations were suspended for more than two hours as chaos reigned during evening rush hour yesterday after a train carriage lost its door in a rare incident that shocked passengers.

The carriage door came off after hitting a loose advertisement board as the train slid into the platform at Causeway Bay station.

No one was hurt.

The bizarre incident will likely cost the train operator more than HK$3 million in fines.

The train is an older British-made model, which the MTR had previously refurbished. All trains running on the Island line are the same British model.

The rare accident took place at about 6.30pm on a Kennedy Town-bound train at Platform 2 in Causeway Bay station.

A pair of doors from the first carriage flew off and landed onto the tracks. However, they were not the ones facing the platform but on the other side with advertisement billboards.

According to online photos and videos uploaded by passengers, the glass windows on the train doors were shattered and pieces of broken glass scattered on the rail, with some seen piled up on an electric wire attached to the wall below the billboard.

Passenger Mr Cheung said he heard strange noises. "When the train was approaching the station, I heard a 'bang,' which is strange, and when I walked towards the door, many were taking pictures there were no doors.

"It was not at the peak rush hour as it was only about 6pm and many people had yet to finish work so the carriage was not yet packed.

"It is really fortunate there were not many people in that carriage."

By 7.45pm, engineers managed to remove the door from the rail and at about 8pm they drove the train away from the platform, with service resuming by 9pm.

MTR's head of operations Sammy Wong Kwan-wai said the incident occurred when the train was entering Causeway Bay station at slow speed.

Staff found a set of doors had become loose and dropped to the side of the track.

"There are signs of collision of the doors and the advertising panel. We initially suspected that some of the parts of the advertising panel may have come into contact with the door set and caused the incident," Wong said.

Nelson Ng Wai-hung, chief of operations engineering, said the part that shifted was movable on the advertising panel.

MTR Corp immediately announced the service disruption was caused by an equipment fault on a train. It offered free a shuttle bus service between Wan Chai and Quarry Bay stations.

As of 7.30pm, passengers had to wait for four minutes for a train traveling between Kennedy Town and Wan Chai stations, as well as those traveling between Tai Koo and Chai Wan stations.

Even with the disruption, train stations on the Island Line were packed with people getting off work.

During the incident, New World First Bus and Citybus said on Facebook that they had strengthened bus services to get stranded passengers home.

Veteran engineer Edmund Leung Kwong-ho said he was on a train at North Point station heading towards Causeway Bay for dinner.

"I waited for a while at North Point station and found out that the train would not leave the station, therefore returned to the pavement, and saw the streets full of people," he said.

Association of Hong Kong Railway Transport Professionals chairman Henry Cheung Nin-sang described the accident as "having made the impossible possible."

He said doors of the train model were attached to the compartments using buckles, similar to how shower curtains hang, with only the bottom of the doors clipped to the external wall of the compartment.

Cheung said the train involved was an old model and run frequently.

He also said the daily inspection of trains does not include checking the metal hooks of the doors, with the rail company usually changing the hooks during the big maintenance at the depot.

Cheung said the maintenance and inspection were considered to be stringent but the rail company should consider if it needs to change other trains of the same model.

Democratic Party's spokesman for transportation policies, Nicholas Hon Chun-yin, said the accident is unacceptable, as it could lead to serious casualties if the accident occurred when the train was packed or running at high speed.

Hon said the government should demand MTR set up a special unit to investigate the incident and review the daily maintenance and checking procedures.

Authorities should also look into whether the quality of trains recently purchased by MTR are up to par and release a report afterwards to clear public doubts.

The party demanded that the rail operator explain the causes of the accident as soon as possible, including whether there are serious problems in daily maintenance or regular check-ups.