LRT Kelana Jaya Line: 16 stations up to Ampang Park closed until 15 Nov as catastrophic failure strikes trains

Commuters woke up to shocking news this morning—so much so that this writer thought it was fake—as RapidKL announced an immediate weeklong closure of 16 stations on the Kelana Jaya Line. This follows multiple failures that befell the line since the weekend, leaving riders stranded. The outage, which will last until 15th November, will affect stations from Kelana Jaya to Ampang Park, impacting riders in Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur.

Which stations are affected by the closure?

Here is the full list of stations closed:

• Kelana Jaya
• Taman Bahagia
• Taman Paramount
• Asia Jaya
• Taman Jaya
• Universiti
• Kerinchi
• Abdullah Hukum
• KL Sentral
• Bangsar
• Pasar Seni
• Masjid Jamek
• Dang Wangi
• Kampung Baru
• KLCC
• Ampang Park

These stations represent the majority of the original Kelana Jaya line, formerly known as Putra LRT. The eight remaining stations from Damai to the Gombak terminus, as well as the 13 stations on the Subang Jaya extension from Lembah Subang to Putra Heights, will continue operating as usual but will close an hour earlier at 11pm. The Ampang and Sri Petaling line (including at the Masjid Jamek station), as well as the MRT network, are unaffected by the outage.

Free shuttle buses for affected users

In an effort to plug up this hole in its public transport network, RapidKL will mobilise free shuttle buses along five routes, which include:

• LRT1 – LRT Ara Damansara to LRT Pasar Seni (no stops)
• LRT2 – LRT Ara Damansara to LRT Kelana Jaya (no stops)
• LRT3 – LRT Kelana Jaya to LRT Pasar Seni (stops at every station)
• LRT4 – LRT Masjid Jamek to LRT Pasar Seni (no stops)
• LRT5 – LRT Dato Keramat to LRT Masjid Jamek (stops at every station)

What’s the cause of the closure?

While RapidKL did not immediately pinpoint the cause of the closure, it almost certainly stems from the line’s problematic Automatic Train Control (ATC), which has caused major issues since Saturday. At 10:34am, a malfunction hit one of the ATC’s electronic devices, requiring trains to be driven manually from the KLCC to Ampang Park stations and disrupting the entire line’s schedule.

The component was reset before the technical team updated the ATC’s software the following morning, with services resuming as normal at 6am. However, the issue resurfaced on Monday at 10:38am, resulting in a temporary closure from Kelana Jaya to KLCC to carry out maintenance work. The same issue happened again at 8:39pm, disrupting the same stretch.

As a safety measure, stations from Kelana Jaya to Ampang Park was closed at 10:15pm, followed by the entire line at 11:15pm. The engineering and technical team, assisted by equipment provider Thales Group, performed an investigation to locate the source of the problems plaguing the line. Although they were able to stabilise the ATC, the issue happened yet again yesterday afternoon, so clearly RapidKL needed a prolonged closure to resolve the affair once and for all.

Related reading

• LRT Kelana Jaya Line: Here’s the list of major service disruptions so far this year
• Anthony Loke: Upgrading the entire LRT system top priority if Pakatan Harapan takes over govt
• LRT Kelana Jaya Line closure: How did RapidKL get it so wrong?