Serangoon MRT station


Serangoon MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit interchange station on the North East line and Circle line in Serangoon, Singapore. Located at the intersection of Upper Serangoon Road and Serangoon Central, this station is directly linked to Nex and Serangoon Bus Interchange.

History

Construction of the station began in July 1997, for the Contract 704 for the design and construction of Woodleigh and Serangoon stations and associated tunnels was awarded to Wayss & Freytag – Econ Piling – Chew Eu Hock Construction Joint-Venture on 23 June that year for S$316.7 million.
Before the station opened, the Singapore Civil Defence Force conducted the second ever Shelter Open House on 15–16 February 2003, together with Chinatown, Farrer Park and Hougang stations.
The artwork in the North East line side of the station under the Art in Transit programme is Memories of Childhood by Eng Joo Heng. The artwork featured in the Circle line side is called View of Life by Sarkasi Said. The author used 18 original batik paintings on cloth which were photographed and printed onto a sheet of glass.

Circle line

The Circle line portion of the station opened on 28 May 2009. This is the second station in the MRT system after Dhoby Ghaut to have a travelator within the paid-area of the station. An integrated development, consisting of the nex shopping mall and the Serangoon Bus Interchange, is built on the site directly above the Circle line part of this station.

Station sinking incident

In February 2005, excavation for the tunnels under the existing North East line station for the Circle line interchange station hit an unusually large body of groundwater. This caused settlement of the North East line station as well as the Serangoon viaduct directly above the station, with the station sinking by 1 cm. As a result, trains bound for Punggol pulling off the station had to pass by the affected area at a lower speed. By the first few months of 2007, train speeds started picking up once again after the excavation was near completion.