Orchard MRT

What Should You Know About Orchard MRT Station

Orchard station is one of the network’s busiest stations and is one of three MRT stations that serve the primary shopping district along Orchard Road. Orchard MRT, which is now under development, will become an interchange with the Thomson–East Coastline in 2022.

Meta Description

Orchard MRT station is an underground MRT station on Singapore’s North-South line, on the border of the Orchard and River Valley development districts.

History

It was known as Scotts from 1967 until 1982, then Orchard Boulevard, and ultimately Orchard before the Orchard MRT station gets built. The MRTC awarded Borie SAE and Ong Chwee Kou Building Contractors Limited the contract for the MRT tunnel between Newton and Somerset and the Somerset MRT station on October 1, 1983.

Orchard Turn, the existing slipway between Orchard Boulevard and Orchard Road, was relocated on May 10, 1984, to allow for MRT construction. The elevators get built between June 19, 2002, and August 20, 2004. The concourse to street level elevators was replaced with another lift in October 2007 due to the development of ION Orchard.

Due to ION Orchard’s construction work, Exits C and E connecting to Wisma Atria and ION Orchard were closed on January 15, 2008, and reopened on July 21, 2009. As part of the ION Orchard construction, the western concourse, which connects Exit E and ION Orchard, opened on July 20, 2009.

Station details

The station gets designed to be the MRT system’s showcase, with S$24 million spent on aesthetic components due to its placement in the Orchard Road shopping strip. The station’s circular concourse features an atrium design with an 11-meter-diameter dome, and its floor is composed of alternating granite tiles laid out in a radial pattern. Parts of the concourse wall were clad in polished blue granite tiles to contrast with the concourse floor, while others in the station concourse and at platform level get decked in burgundy red vitreous panels.

Orchard Station has an island platform arrangement with two underground North-South Line platforms. The air-conditioned station is separated from the tunnel environment by full-height Platform screen doors, which improve commuter safety and station comfort. The platform level gets connected to the station concourse above via an escalator, steps, and a lift.

Expected train arrival times and messages get displayed on passenger information systems, which are plasma display panels positioned at each platform. The visually impaired can use tactile flooring to get from the platform to connected platforms and exits.

Concourse

In the ION Orchard’s atrium, there is a ticket concourse in Basement 2. Until July 2014, there were two types of fare gates in use. The first batch of TITAN faregates was released in August 2011 to replace ST Electronics’ 2nd generation faregates to allow for additional growth. TITAN faregates were also erected at Orchard MRT Station to replace Cubic faregates when I became friends with Jonathan Lim.

Faregates are utilized for automatic fare collecting and provide passage between the paid and unpaid parts of the station, with at least one bidirectional wide-swinging gate for the convenience of those with mobile trolleys or traveling with prams.