The corporation’s general manager, Cheok Lay Leng, said investigations were being carried out “to determine how the seal could have been damaged after just two years when it was meant to last four years”, Bernama reported.

He said the seal was manufactured by a foreign company and Saturday’s incident was the first such malfunction in 10 years of the train’s operation.

The funicular railway was overhauled in 2010 with new tracks and new Swiss-made carriages.

Cheok said engineers and technicians took more than 10 hours to identify the problem and rectify it on Saturday.

About 900 visitors were left stranded by the breakdown and were helped down the hill through the night. The railway resumed services at 4.45pm yesterday.

Saturday’s breakdown was the second this month. On Dec 4, more than 500 people were affected after the train service was disrupted for more than two hours from 10am.

Cheok said the Dec 4 case was attributed to human error caused by a worker pressing the wrong button.

“Because of that, the alert and warning system was automatically activated, causing the funicular train to stop. Checks by the PHC team showed that there were no defects,” he said.

Cheok said the Penang Hill railway was safe to use. Inspections were carried out daily, weekly and monthly, and comprehensive maintenance done twice a year.

“At that time, operations are fully shut down for two to three weeks to enable works to be carried out thoroughly and properly,” he said.

He said the recent incidents had not affected visitor arrivals at Penang Hill.