The week-long shut down to reconfigure tracks at Tanah Merah station completed a day early last week, allowing for the resumption of train services. With the expanded Tanah Merah station now since reopened for a week, we take a look at the changes made to the station as part of the upgrade.
Old eastbound track, current Platforms B & C
One of the obvious changes was the swap of platforms and tracks for eastbound trains towards Pasir Ris, which now pull into the new platform A. As a result, passengers from the city travelling towards Changi Airport now needed to transfer to the Changi Airport Line (CAL) by descending to the concourse first, instead of merely transferring between platforms like before. As we believe that conversion works at Platforms B & C, the former eastbound track, would not commence until contract T3206 works begin, we were unsure why temporary decking across the disused tracks could not be installed to allow more convenient transfers temporarily.
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9 December 2025 - A view along Platform C, the passenger information display merely indicating
"Welcome to SMRT". |
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12 December 2025 - A view of the hoarding along Platform B. Contract T315 likely does not
include the installation of platform screen gates to be used for elevated stations along the future
Thomson-East Coast Line. |
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12 December 2025 - A view of the existing platform screen gates along Platform C, the former
eastbound track. Route maps that used to adorn the gates have been removed along with other
wayfinding information and replaced with makeshift signs. |
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12 December 2025 - The former eastbound track. An eastbound train can be seen pulled up at the
new Platform A behind the hoarding along Platform B. |
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| 14 December 2025 - A view of the former eastbound track, now referred to as Platforms B/C. |
CAL track, Platforms D & E
Also, expected but nonetheless still disappointing, was the fact that operator SMRT had not increased frequency along the CAL despite the track reconfiguration works now alleviating the previous bottleneck experienced between Expo and Tanah Merah stations.
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12 December 2025 - Frequency along the CAL remains at approximately 9 minutes during peak
periods. |
Exits re-numbering, updated station maps
Other changes seen post-upgrade were the exit re-numbering. This is the second station along the East-West Line (EWL) to be fully renumbered, following Outram Park which also happens to be an interchange with the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) - Tanah Merah will eventually be the second interchange station between both lines once the TEL Extension via Changi Airport is completed, taking over the CAL.
As expected, Exits A and B were renumbered to Exits 1 and 2 respectively, while the new exits remained closed and unopened. This also means that the new eastern concourse has yet to be opened to the public. Maps on the official SMRT website still display the old version, referring to the Exits as A and B - again not unexpected given the operator's track record.
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12 December 2025 - How its going: A view of the updated station map,
which is not yet available on SMRT's website as of 14 Dec 2025. |
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| 27 November 2025 - How it started: Exit A with its original signage. |
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| 14 December 2025 - How its going: The newly renumbered Exit 1, with station name signage since updated. |
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| 27 November 2025 - How it started: Exit B with its original signage. |
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| 14 December 2025 - How its going: The newly renumbered Exit 2, with station name signage since updated. |
Revised passenger information display screens & formats
The station upgrade also came with revised display screens for the EWL platforms - Platforms A and F - which now feature 4 screens per platform, over the previous 1 screen each. This greatly improves visibility across the length of the platform and provides a better overall experience for passengers. The CAL platforms still retain a single display screen each but sport a refreshed display interface. Gone are the end destination codes, but instead the station alphanumeric code becomes the main focus.
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| 25 March 2025 - How it started: A view of the former passenger information display screen, with the old display format visible along the old Platform A. |
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| 9 December 2025 - How its going: New passenger information display interface for Platform A. |
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8 December 2025 - How its going: A view of the new passenger information
display interface at Platform D. CAL frequency remained at 10 minutes. |
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| 12 December 2025 - How its going: A view of the new passenger information display interface at Platform F. The old screen had since been removed, replaced by the 4 newer screens. |
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14 December 2025 - How its going: A view of the 4 new display screens on the westbound Platform
F. The old screen used to hang from the utility boom, but has since been removed and thus is no
longer visible. |
The refreshed display interface was also extended to the concourse level, where passengers tap into the paid area. The former display interface used to toggle between the EWL destinations and the CAL destinations alternately. With the revised display interface, the toggling has since been eliminated and all destinations are now shown at once.
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| 27 October 2024 - How it started: A view of the fare unpaid area of the concourse. The old display interface can be seen on the passenger information display screen showing train arrival times. |
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14 December 2025 - How its going: A view of the new passenger information display screen
interface with all train destinations now shown. |
Even the LED screen boards have also been updated to display text consistent with the recent format used since TEL commenced operations. This format utilises white text over the former multi-coloured text used by operator SMRT to indicate various destinations previously. Additionally, operator SMRT used to add on a ticker-tape for announcements below the train arrival timings, adding further noise to the display. This has since been removed for added clarity, focusing on the train arrival times.
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| 27 November 2025 - How it started: LED arrivals board pre-upgrade with multi-coloured text visible. |
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| 14 December 2025 - How its going: LED arrivals board post-upgrade using white text only. Announcements have also been removed to focus on train arrival information. |
Signage housing
Old signage housing at the platform level have also been replaced, standardising the design of the signage housing across all platforms.
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| 9 December 2024 - How it started: The old signage housing, seen during the 2024 service change. |
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| 9 December 2024 - How it started: A close up view of the former signage housing at platform level. |
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14 December 2025: How its going: A view of the new signage housing at platforms E & F. The
yellow markers on the floor indicate where the old housing used to stand. |
New station facilities
With the station building expanded, new facilities were also provided for, keeping up with the facilities introduced along newer lines. In particular, a new family washroom has been added within the paid area of the concourse. These facilities are being provided for at interchange stations on newer lines.
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| 14 December 2025 - The new family washroom, located within the platform A & B extension. |
Now that the station has been reopened for a week, we hope that you've had time to look around and explore the new features added or replaced. Did we manage to uncover some changes that you weren't aware of? Let us know in the comments if we did! While there is slight inconvenience with having to descend to the concourse to change trains now, we hope that once the works to convert CAL into the TEL are completed that commuters will find it much easier to change trains.
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