All you need to know about the Downtown Line

The Downtown Line (DTL) runs from the North-Western and Central-Eastern regions to the new downtown and is an underground, driverless, medium-capacity MRT line. When fully operational, the line will connect Bukit Panjang (DT1) to Sungei Bedok (DT37) through the tunnel and measure roughly 44 kilometers (DT17). A shell station with merely structural provisions, Hume Station (reserved station code DT4), will be renovated and opened around 2025. 

The Downtown Line Stage 3e gets scheduled to debut in 2024 and will extend the line from its current Expo terminus to Sungei Bedok (DT37) through Xilin (DT36). The East Coast Integrated Depot, now under construction, will house trains on different levels on the Thomson-East Coast Line, Downtown Line, and East-West Line after it connects to the Thomson-East Coast Line. According to the Land Transport Master Plan 2040, the Downtown Line Stage 2e would open in the middle of the 2030s and extend the line from its current northern Bukit Panjang terminus to Sungei Kadut.

Rolling stock:

As of 2011, the Downtown line only has one type of rolling stock, three-car formations of Bombardier MOVIA C951(A) cars. Since it opened in December 2015, along with Stage 2 of the Downtown Line, they get stabled at Gali Batu Depot. Trains get stabled at a maintenance facility erected at Marina Bay as part of the Circle line project for the time between the opening of Stage 1 and that of Stage 2. The first 11 trains for the route arrived at Jurong Port in October 2012. Before being given to SBS Transit, the LTA brought it to Kim Chuan Depot for testing. On October 21, 2015, rolling stock transported to Gali Batu Depot began operating in Stage 1, and on October 25, 2015, testing for Stage 2 began. In 2024, a brand-new depot with the working name East Coast Integrated Depot will increase the line’s capacity for stabling. 

Route:

The Downtown line typically travels east-west from Bukit Panjang in Singapore’s northwest via the city’s downtown to Tampines and the Singapore Expo in the east. It is underground and 41.9 km (26.0 mi) long. There is a short northward expansion to the line’s depot, Gali Batu Depot, before Bukit Panjang station. The Bukit Panjang station serves as the starting point for the line, which runs parallel to Upper Bukit Timah Road and follows the Bukit Timah Canal as it makes its way southeast via Bukit Timah. The railway enters the core sector after passing Little India Station and arriving at the Central Business District at Bugis Station. The Circle Line and the Downtown Line run parallel at the Promenade and Bayfront stations.The route travels northeast and passes beneath the Singapore River after Chinatown station. The first MRT line to do so intersects itself between the Bencoolen and Jalan Besar stations The Thomson-East Coast line at Sungei Bedok station will reach by the DTL3 extension (DTL3e) from Expo station.