Singaporeans are no strangers to the words terrorism, especially when public transport security announcements are heard throughout the transit system daily.
Or this video, which has been omnipresent across all MRT stations in the last two decades:
Production house Ochre Pictures has undertaken the herculean task of producing a local TV drama Third Rail, featuring a life-sized train and rail tunnel in its film set at the Changi Exhibition Centre.
The train featured in the show is a first-generation Kawasaki Heavy Industries C151 train, used on the North-South and East-West Lines since 1987.
Together with the 2nd and 3rd-generation trains, these trains are currently being decommisioned. Most traincars are headed straight for the scrapyard, but authorities have been open to proposals to repurpose these old cars, including the upcycling of the old seats in neighbourhoods.
Retired Kawasaki Heavy Industries C151 train cars 3095 and 1095 were transported across the island from Tuas West Depot to Changi Exhibition Centre on the night of 5th March 2022.
After arriving at Changi Exhibition Centre, the train cars were lifted by crane onto real train tracks and sleepers. A 180m-long tunnel was then constructed around it.
The original SMRT black train livery was covered in a fictional colourful “KMRT” livery. One would also easily recognize shapes of the route maps in the train cabin, but the stations names have been renamed for filming purposes as well.
Walking through the dark stuffy train set, we could see much of the original train features were retained, including the familiar red-green-(blue) colour scheme for the seats.
A pair of broken windows, and leftover shattered glass bits on the train floor – a revelation of some of the hostage scenes captured as part of the drama.
Third Rail will be available on meWATCH starting Oct 17, on Mediacorp YouTube Drama Channel starting Oct 25 and on Channel 5 starting Oct 31 at 9.30pm.
Continue your tour on a virtual walkthrough in our video collaboration here!
See also
The post Retired MRT Train featured in local TV Drama Third Rail first appeared on Land Transport Guru.