Largest depot for trains and buses due for completion in 2025 in Changi

[SINGAPORE] Singapore's largest depot for trains and buses is taking shape in Changi, which, when ready in 2025, will accommodate 200 trains from three different lines and up to 760 buses.

The three-level East Coast Integrated Depot (ECID) occupies a 36 ha plot in Upper Changi Road East, next to the existing 25 ha single-level Changi Depot which houses trains from the East-West MRT line.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) would not comment on the S$2 billion project's state of completion, saying only that it would be ready in 2025 - a year later than the initial 2024 deadline. It is among a string of infrastructural projects delayed by the pandemic.

The Straits Times understands civil works for the underground level have been completed; casting of main structures of the two above-ground levels is almost done.

The ECID is the first multi-level train depot here, and believed to be the first of its kind in the world. It is also the largest depot here, and will stable trains from three lines - East-West (on the second level), Thomson-East Coast (first level) and Downtown (basement).

A four-level bus depot incorporating a workshop sits next to it.

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The multi-level design of the bus-train depot is said to have reduced land use by 44 ha.

Work on new viaducts that are part of the ECID is also progressing. The LTA said more than 4 km of viaducts that will lead East-West line trains to the new depot will be built.

Downtown Line trains now use the Gali Batu Depot in Woodlands; Thomson-East Coast Line trains berth at the Mandai Depot.

An LTA spokesman said: "When completed, LTA will start to work on transferring operations from the current Changi East-West line depot to ECID. The current Changi Depot will eventually be decommissioned and demolished after operations have been fully transferred."

The Changi Depot sits on a plot which was part of Kampong Koh Sek Lim, a village which dated back to the 50s and was acquired in 1983 for the construction of the MRT facility.

The Changi Depot made headlines in 2010 when a train parked there was spray-painted by two foreign vandals. One was caught and jailed that year; the other is still at large.