Kawasaki Heavy Industries C151 - Initial Design and Construction

Initial Design and Construction

Following a round of competitive bidding by companies around the world, a Japanese consortium consisting of Kawasaki Heavy Industries as the leader with Nippon Sharyo, Tokyu Car Corp and Kinki Sharyo was awarded Contract 151 in 1984 at a cost of S$581.5 million for the construction of 396 passenger cars. The award was the largest single contract awarded in the initial construction of the system. The first trainset was delivered to MRT Corporation (now SMRT Corporation) on 8 July 1986 at Bishan Depot, officiated by Dr. Yeo Ning Hong.

The cars had an aluminium-alloy double-skinned construction, and arrived unpainted in order to save time. A red adhesive strip ran through the length of the cars at the middle, giving it a distinctive look. The decision not to paint the cars gave a shiny appearance upon delivery, but as dirt and grime started to accumulate over time it became a problem that came back to haunt the operator repeatedly with public complaints. MRT Corporation first built a machine-wash in an attempt to cleaning up the cars' exterior properly, but reverted to hand-wash when the method did not work out. A series of repainting programmes was begun in the early-2000s to repaint the exteriors of trains, which worked quite well, but refurbishment meant that the new paint did not stand the test of time. It was not until refurbishment that the problem was solved once and for all by covering up the cars' exterior literately with adhesive, giving a new livery that is similar to the C751B trains.

The interior of these trains consists mostly of plastic, with glass partitions separating the seating areas from the passenger doors and metal grab poles. Straps line the middle of every car. The colour scheme of the interior are also different. The cab cars (trailer cars at the ends of the train) have an orange colour scheme (which was changed to red during refurbishment). The second and fifth motor cars sport a blue interior, while the middle two motor cars use a green colour scheme. These trains have no visual passenger information systems, but have an automatic built-in audio announcement system. There are 9 seats between 2 doors (which was reduced to 7 during refurbishment and thus 4 has been designated as priority seats).