You are right. In the morning while taking CCL to school, I
would stop at PYL to see the PYL peak trains. The station manager
is the one announcing the terminating thingy. And he announces
after a MRM bound train has left, which goes : "Dear Passengers,
the train in the middle platform terminates its service at
Marymount. Passengers who are going to Serangoon, Bishan or
Marymount, plase board this train. **Repeat** "
It is quite amazing that they have built the PYL platform only
serving the MRM bound tracks. BTW, this is by LTA, not SMRT. SMRT
does not have a choice. But I am quite surprised that LTA predicted
quite correctly that there are many people going from PYL to SGN
and Bishan (BSN?). If you take the train from early 7+ to before 8,
the trip from Bishan till PYL is quite packed, and after that to
DKT and SDM, not so packed. But I am not sure about 8+ till 9,
maybe it gets more packed...
In a sense it's based on e wrong direction.
It's obvious PM off peak aft Paya Lebar city bound train would
be empty le. But wat abt Marymount bound? It's not like buses where
MRT can go empty to DBG and do downroute.
As for peak hrs, 7 mins wait is too long until SWT trains depart
Paya Lebar to Marymount close to empty while City leg trains are
packed.