A life's work dedicated to building Singapore's rail network

Chua Chong Kheng has had a hand in almost every project in 29-year career
By Adrian Lim, The Straits Times, 12 Jan 2015

AFTER graduating at the top of his electrical engineering class from the then Nanyang Technological Institute in 1985, Mr Chua Chong Kheng thought initially about becoming a pilot.

That was before he was offered a chance to be part of what he felt was the "newest, biggest and most challenging engineering undertaking" in Singapore then.

And so started his journey in the rail business, as a rolling-stock engineer with the then Mass Rapid Transit Corporation, which was building the country's first subway system.

Mr Chua, now 55 and deputy chief executive of the Land Transport Authority (LTA), has had a hand in almost every rail project in a career spanning 29 years. They range from the North-South Line launched in 1987 to the Thomson-East Coast Line, slated to be fully operational by 2024.

But it was a steep learning curve at the start, admits the veteran railway man.

"For me, personally, trains were a new thing and in Singapore, we had no trains to look at. So, for everything, we were learning from drawings," said Mr Chua, the youngest of eight children and the only one among his siblings to go to university.

In those days, opportunities to travel to other countries to study their rail systems were limited, he said. He recalled his excitement when the first trains were delivered in 1986: "Then you start to touch it, feel it, (and see) how the things work."

At a time when the field of rail engineering was in its infancy here, he said he benefited from working with experienced specialists from places such as Australia and Hong Kong.

Since then, a very competent pool of local engineers has been built up, he noted.

From handling train design and the procurement of trains and maintenance vehicles for the first MRT lines as a rolling-stock engineer, he progressed to work on Singapore's first LRT system in Bukit Panjang.

In 1996, he embarked on what he called his most ambitious project to date - leading the electrical and mechanical project team for the North-East Line, the world's first driverless and fully automated heavy metro system.

Several engineering innovations were introduced, such as the "moving block signalling with waveguide" - a system that allows trains to maintain a safe distance from each other.

Barring a two-year secondment in 2006 to the Ministry of Transport, Mr Chua has dedicated his life's work to building Singapore's rail network. Three years ago, he took on his current LTA role, overseeing all land transport infrastructure development.

While the early years were challenging due to the lack of expertise in Singapore, building new rail infrastructure today poses its own challenges.

"All our new lines are underground and... where we cross existing lines, we have to (dig) deeper," he said.

Public expectations are also higher now. While his team of engineers strives to ensure that new projects run smoothly, it can be "quite demoralising" when breakdowns occur, such as during the early days of the Downtown Line.

"(People say) how come this (MRT) line was so good; now, this one you built, so lousy?," Mr Chua said.

There is sometimes a misconception that all new systems run without a hitch from Day One. A "bathing-in" period of six to nine months is required for any new project, he said.

While all forms of load testing can be performed, the real variable is with live passengers. "You never know how the system will behave in a live environment. How people will block the doors, how people will touch this and that," he added.

With Singapore's rail story only halfway through - the target is to double the network to 360km by 2030 - the work is far from complete.

And lessons from the first rail some three decades back are still being learnt.

"We are learning about the behaviour of things when they age. We are going through a full circle," he added.

Singapore's Rail Story goes on show

LEARN more about the development and future of rail travel in Singapore at the Rail Story exhibition, which starts tomorrow at Katong I12.

Besides hearing the stories from the men and women who helped to design and build Singapore's train network, visitors can also see models of rail infrastructure and what engineers use to build tunnels.

The roadshow, which is organised by the Land Transport Authority, will end on Sunday.