Changi Depot, home to the East West Line trains since 1989, will soon be demolished. On 9 October 2025, the Land Transport Authority put up a tender for the Demoltion of Changi Depot and Associated Works (T3015).
The depot will be replaced by the East Coast Integrated Depot, a first depot in the world which will serve 3 trains lines – the East West Line (EWL), Downtown Line (DTL) and the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), as well as a bus depot.
Repurposing of Changi Depot
The URA Draft Master Plan 2025 reveals intentions to repurpose a former train shed for recreational purposes. It is currently not known how much of the original depot will be retained in this contract.
Separately, the LTA also announced in 2024 plans to decommission viaducts near Changi Depot and convert them to active mobility corridors. [Link]
Opening of East Coast Integrated Depot by Year-End
A 10-day closure of the East West Line will facilitate works to integrate the EWL to the new East Coast Integrated Depot depot. Subsequently, the new Depot is expected to be progressively commissioned for East West Line operations from 9 December 2025.
The bus depot will begin operations ahead of the start date of the Tampines Bus Package. Go-Ahead Singapore will operate around 400 buses on 27 bus services from the East Coast Bus Depot from 5 July 2026.
As part of the 10 day closure, LTA mentioned that there would be one more planned service adjustment in the first half of 2026 to fully decommission the Changi Depot.
Unlike other countries such as Japan, Singapore currently does not have a dedicated MRT train museum. I propose that the decommissioned Changi Train Depot can be repurposed as a dedicated train museum for Singapore to address with their own rail history institutions which offers an excellent chance for Singapore to create its first dedicated train museum.
In Singapore, all decisions are made with dollars and cents in mind.
Honestly, if they have the foresight, they should preserve at least one entire set of C151, and put at Changi train depot.
Changi train depot can become our Singapore train museum, just like the train museums in Kaohsiung and some other places.
They would’ve kept a whole set of C651 and C751B if they actually do have any foresight, and make it a heritage set which would make heritage runs on ewnsl just like London.
I had the same thought too! Such a missed opportunity to have our very own train museum. And here I thought Singapore wanted more attractions and tourism. People would travel far and wide to visit it.
They rather do other things for commercial benefits like new malls/BTO/ condos or new attractions which can generate profits.