$410m Gali Batu MRT depot to open in 2016

It's the first depot with a BCA Green Mark Gold.

Gali Batu MRT Depot is located along Woodlands Road, at the northern end of the Downtown Line. It is the first MRT depot in Singapore to achieve the certification of BCA Green Mark Gold.

According to Land Transportation Authority (LTA), the depot is constructed by the joint venture comprising of GS Engineering and Construction Corp. of South Korea and Hock Lian Seng Infrastructure Ltd of Singapore. GS Engineering & Construction Corp. is a South Korean company that has worked on the Seoul Subway Line while Hock Lian Seng Infrastructure Ltd is a local contractor with extensive experience in the construction of both road and rail infrastructure projects.

The at-grade depot consists of a seven-storey administration cum workshop building and other ancillary buildings to provide stabling, maintenance, operation and support facilities for the operation of the Downtown Line (DTL). It also houses the Operation Control Centre for the DTL.

LTA says that the depot measures approximately 1.8 kilometres in length and 250 metres in width. The 25-hectare area is equivalent to 38 football fields. It has a stabling capacity of 42 three-car trains. Expansion of the depot is underway to increase the stabling capacity to 81 three-car trains.

Built at a cost of about $410 million, the depot took five years to design and build after removing almost 3.9 million cubic metres of earth, including blasting and removal of about 100,000 cubic metres of hard granite rock. The volume of earth excavated is enough to fill more than 1,500 Olympic-size swimming pools.