Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

While the original plan had rail replace most cross city trips, we are just beginning to discover that buses can do a better job. So, the original purpose of rail is eroding. Longer trips by rail are becoming non-competitive, which is where rail should have excelled.

This seems to be an issue with the design, and the attempt to combine commuter rail with an urban transit system. For a proper urban transit system, speed over long distances is not a priority, whereas intra-urban mobility is (at least until the system is comprehensive enough to add express service).

If people were sold on the idea of the train being faster than the (ultimately unsustainable) commuter express bus set up, they were always destined for disappointment
.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Again, this is just arguing the semantics of what you say OC Transpo "parroted".
OC Transpo gave a relevant update on the work that needed to be done before service could resume.
Your concern is that they didn't mention the remaining work (which it turns out they actually did mention) that didn't block the resumption of service anyway.




This is a very different argument than what you presented in the post I originally replied to.

I think comparing this to an airbag is also really flawed. There are many more external factors that could cause a head-on collision when driving (i.e. possibly hundreds of other drivers, any one of which could make a mistake), and without restricting the speed of driving your broken car there is an inherent increase of risk that does not exist on the LRT. Even with a functional airbag, I think you'd already know that driving is significantly more dangerous than a very speed-reduced train...


What exactly qualifies you to build entire arguments around guesswork while still providing no real sources to support anything you say?


Yard track is laid differently than mainline track and kept to different standards. They can't be compared directly. (This has been explained in public meetings to city council).

Well, you can play with semantics all you like. But you are not actually addressing the issues that I have brought up. It is useless to simply dismiss a potential safety issue with a statement like “that didn’t block the resumption of service anyway.” Maybe it should have. Maybe the risk is considered to be ‘low enough’.

Here are the facts:
• Restraining rails are a safety measure.
• The restraining rails have been temporarily removed from the curve east of Rideau Station.
• IF the train begins to derail on that curve due to the high wheel climbing the high rail, there will be no restraining rail to prevent continued sideways movement (until the restraining rails are reinstalled).
• The current ‘Slow Order’ for that curve is 15 KPH.
• A train can derail on a tight curve, that is not protected with a suitable restraining rail, even when traveling at a slow speed.
• The city has claimed that the work required to relocate all 16 restraining rails “has been completed.”

Are you keen to dispute any of those facts?

Please include as much detail as you can, and not vague statements like “This has been explained in public meetings to city council.”

And, a ‘thank-you’ to roger1818 for suggesting that a Collision Avoidance System is a better analogy. I agree. And, yes, a car with a disabled Collision Avoidance System, itself, may be no less safe to drive. However, in the unlikely case of a driver, even though being more cautious, not noticing something that requires immediate braking, having the Collision Avoidance System disabled could lead to an otherwise avoidable accident.

At the risk of having OCCheetos complain that I’m not qualified to imagine scenarios; if, for example, dragging equipment under the train kicks up a piece of ballast onto the high rail of a curve, the fact that speed has been adjusted down may not be enough to prevent a derailment, if there is no restraining rail.

There is a reason that safety equipment is added. It is not for the usual scenarios, but the exceptional ones. Unfortunately, there are people who remove safety equipment, replacing it with “I’ll be careful, so nothing could possibly go wrong.” That is when I get most scared.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by Williamoforange

Rose-tinted glasses.... And a whole lot of suburbanite whining about not having the express system that got them to/from there 9-5.... Just look at the kerfuffle about the QED, to see what is backing this whining....

Rose-tinted indeed. I can understand criticism of some LRT design choices, the maintenance contract and the overall poor execution of the build-out, but can we stop acting like the old transitway and its capacity limits weren't a major issue and transitioning to a rail-based rapid transit system was a mistake?

The plan to replace the core transitway with a new rail system was and still is the right choice. The execution of it is another matter entirely. Enough with the revisionist schtick.

[Uhuniau]

I think the image of a busjam just triggered something.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Agreed! An air bag does nothing to prevent a collision. It is just there to protect the occupants when one happens. A much better analogy would be with with a car's "Collision avoidance system." Those are safety features, but having to temporarily disable it doesn't make the car unsafe to drive. You just need to make the appropriate adjustments when driving the vehicle.



He isn't saying don't talk about it. He is saying don't make accusations that the speed reductions are permanent without any evidence to support your theory.

How is what I said an accusation? Obviously, it is entirely speculative. The priorities at the present time are to reduce the risk of derailments, reduce wear on the wheel assemblies, and reduce maintenance costs . Hopefully, this will allow us run trains at full speed, but is that a 100% certainty? As a member of the public and an Ottawa taxpayer, all I want is to continue to prioritize the elimination of go slow orders at some point in the future. When this all started, it appeared that go slow orders would last weeks or months. That has not turned out to be the case.

[rocketphish]

Jim Watson's 'on time and on budget' promise laid the groundwork for the LRT's mess
Let's not repeat the former mayor's mistake with the repairs.

Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Published Aug 15, 2023 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 4 minute read



“When you’re buying a new suit, if you buy a cheaper suit, you might have an expectation you’re going to have to have the buttons sewn on more often.”

If you’ve met me, you know this advice didn’t come from my imaginary tailor. It came, rather, from city councillor Glen Gower, who chairs Ottawa’s Transit Commission and sits on its Light-Rail sub-committee.

“I think it’s the same thing for large procurement projects,” he told me. “And we certainly didn’t buy the most expensive suit on the rack when it came to LRT.”

That’s a fact. And not to belabour the point, but we didn’t even buy it off the rack. Our LRT suit was a bespoke one, made especially for us.

If it’s any consolation — and it shouldn’t be — we’re not even that special. Everywhere you look, people are wearing crappy suits. Whether it’s building a light rail transit system, an opera house or an icebreaker, megaprojects almost universally fail the “on time and on budget” test that former mayor Jim Watson promised in 2010 would be the untouchable cornerstone of his $2.1 billion LRT system.

According to Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg and Ottawa author Dan Gardner, only about 8.5 per cent of large projects like Ottawa’s LRT are completed on time and on budget.

Flyvbjerg is an expert on such projects, having amassed a database of information about 16,000 of them, from 136 countries. Gardner, meanwhile, is a New York Times bestselling author who has written extensively about risk, psychology and decision-making. Together, the two wrote How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, From Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between.

The book examines the factors that time and again dictate the success or failure of projects. Some of their conclusions seem counterintuitive. For example, if you were doing a kitchen renovation, you’d probably look at all the material you’ll need for the job, calculate how long it will take and the associated labour costs, and — voilà — you’d have a pretty good idea of what your renovation will cost, right?

Wrong. You’d do better, Gardner says, to simply look at what ALL completed kitchen renovation jobs cost and, regardless of the specifics of your project, use those as your guide. They’ll have factored in everything that could likely go wrong. “And something with your project WILL go wrong,” he says.

Besides, the on-time/on-budget mantra is a pretty lousy metric. Goodhart’s Law, named for British economist Charles Goodhart, states that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Watson’s hard cap of $2.1 billion on Ottawa’s LRT is a perfect example of Goodhart’s Law, as it forced concessions and compromises that ultimately contributed to many of the problems the system faces today.

“That’s just a disaster,” Gardner explains, “because what you’re doing is tying yourself to an anchor. And if it turns out that the estimate is, in fact, out of alignment with reality, bad things are guaranteed to happen.”

Gardner’s and Flyvbjerg’s book doesn’t specifically address Ottawa’s LRT, but it does refer to many of the same types of issues and decisions that plagued it. For example, P3 partnerships like the one between Ottawa and RTG, which allowed the city to eliminate much of its financial risk — which certainly seems like a great decision when a sinkhole appears — tend to foster division, finger-pointing and notices of default, Gardner says, instead of involved parties simply concentrating on resolving the issues.

Meanwhile, the provincial requirement of a certain level of Canadian content in the project was a political decision that, by limiting the experience and expertise available, didn’t further the enterprise.

“Experience is one of those things that everybody knows is important and should be maximized,” says Gardner. “And they don’t do it.”

When I asked Gower if you could at all consider LRT still “on budget,” he replied, “In the sense that the city’s financial commitment was capped at that amount, and that we have a set maintenance fee that we’ve agreed to going forward for however many years, I guess you could say, yes, it’s on budget, but in a simplified way.”

But you’d have to squint your eyes and ignore such things as the revenue lost to OC Transpo by having a system that customers abandoned, say, or the time-equals-money equation consumed on the matter by numerous city staff and council, inquiries, lawyers and the like.

The point here, though, isn’t to re-litigate what went wrong with Ottawa’s LRT. Rather, it’s to understand how we might move forward and find a stronger thread to tie the buttons back on, on this project and future ones. We may be breathing sighs of relief that the issues with restraining rails and bearing hub assemblies have been identified, some fixes applied and longer-term solutions initiated.

But we’re hardly clear of the station yet. The Mott MacDonald report, an independent expert review of the LRT system and its maintenance that the city released in April 2022, contained nearly 100 recommendations. Justice William Hourigan’s LRT report of November 2022, following a months-long provincial inquiry, made even more. The city, RTG and RTM (the maintenance arm of RTG), according to Gower, have completed or are in the process of actioning those directions. Hopefully, we take our time to properly address each one so we won’t face as serious a shutdown again.

Let’s face it, we bought a budget suit — already with holes in pockets and ripped seams — but let’s not make the same mistake by going fast or cheap with the repairs.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...se-laid-the-groundwork-for-the-lrts-mess

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

Rose-tinted indeed. I can understand criticism of some LRT design choices, the maintenance contract and the overall poor execution of the build-out, but can we stop acting like the old transitway and its capacity limits weren't a major issue and transitioning to a rail-based rapid transit system was a mistake?

The plan to replace the core transitway with a new rail system was and still is the right choice. The execution of it is another matter entirely. Enough with the revisionist schtick.

Well said, and thank you J.OT13 for the photo to show what the true experience was toward the end. The capacity had nowhere left to go.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by pattherat

Well said, and thank you J.OT13 for the photo to show what the true experience was toward the end. The capacity had nowhere left to go.

Now imagine the same number of buses, but added to the same street are surface trains.

[Fading Isle]

Given how full the trains have been in the east end at rush hour over the past couple days, I suspect there will be issues with overcrowding in September, if they continue to use single car trains at rush hour.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Now imagine the same number of buses, but added to the same street are surface trains.

But you forgot that the City wanted to cut east-west bus service to make room for the trams. It was a brilliant idea!

Originally Posted by Fading Isle

Given how full the trains have been in the east end at rush hour over the past couple days, I suspect there will be issues with overcrowding in September, if they continue to use single car trains at rush hour.

That's exactly how the City wants it. Transit is only successful if the vehicles are crush-load. On the other hand, if a street or highway is bumper to bumper. it's a failure and we need one more lane!

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

But you forgot that the City wanted to cut east-west bus service to make room for the trams. It was a brilliant idea!



That's exactly how the City wants it. Transit is only successful if the vehicles are crush-load. On the other hand, if a street or highway is bumper to bumper. it's a failure and we need one more lane!

That was not entirely true. The plan was to eliminate all north-south buses that had used the Transitway entering downtown.

Nevertheless, it was quite clear that a tunnel was needed in short order regardless.

On your latter point, a crush loaded train would run at about the same speed as a half full train as long as there are enough doors. Here we are talking about cost per passenger of offering the service and keeping that cost as low as possible. A crush loaded road grinds to a halt. Therefore, the different perception of success and failure.

After using the single car train yesterday at peak period, I am also concerned about the likelihood of crush loaded trains come September especially with the re-opening of the universities and colleges if we maintain single car trains.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by phil235

This seems to be an issue with the design, and the attempt to combine commuter rail with an urban transit system. For a proper urban transit system, speed over long distances is not a priority, whereas intra-urban mobility is (at least until the system is comprehensive enough to add express service).

If people were sold on the idea of the train being faster than the (ultimately unsustainable) commuter express bus set up, they were always destined for disappointment
.

Years ago I spoke about this. How Ottawa was trying to build a hybrid system, for both urban short distance users and commuter long distance users and doing neither well. We are now seeing exactly this.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

That was not entirely true. The plan was to eliminate all north-south buses that had used the Transitway entering downtown.

Nevertheless, it was quite clear that a tunnel was needed in short order regardless.

On your latter point, a crush loaded train would run at about the same speed as a half full train as long as there are enough doors. Here we are talking about cost per passenger of offering the service and keeping that cost as low as possible. A crush loaded road grinds to a halt. Therefore, the different perception of success and failure.

After using the single car train yesterday at peak period, I am also concerned about the likelihood of crush loaded trains come September especially with the re-opening of the universities and colleges if we maintain single car trains.

Traffic seems bad, but it's still often faster or as fast to drive over transit. You want a certain amount of congestion on the roads in order to "encourage" people to use alternative modes. Widening roads doesn't solve anything, it just creates more impermeable surfaces and ultimately adds cars to the road system.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Years ago I spoke about this. How Ottawa was trying to build a hybrid system, for both urban short distance users and commuter long distance users and doing neither well. We are now seeing exactly this.

I think it's worth (maybe not as much as pre-pandemic) looking at commuter rail to Barrhaven and Kanata instead of extending the O-Train beyond Fallowfield and Terry Fox. Orleans is close enough to downtown that the O-Train ride won't be ridiculously long, but the other two would be better served by main line railways with fewer stations, if serving commuters is still the goal.

What the Mayor's Task Force had proposed had a lot of value. It just unfortunately ignored the core of the City, as always.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Traffic seems bad, but it's still often faster or as fast to drive over transit. You want a certain amount of congestion on the roads in order to "encourage" people to use alternative modes. Widening roads doesn't solve anything, it just creates more impermeable surfaces and ultimately adds cars to the road system.

Totally agree with you, as long as we are willing to invest in transit that actually works well. There are so many cities around the world that in a matter of a generation have moved from car orientation to alternate forms of transportation for the masses. Ottawa always seems satisfied with second rate. It is like we are refusing to admit that we are now becoming a big city. The shadow effect of being between Montreal and Toronto, I guess. We can't aspire to greatness.

[Fading Isle]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I think it's worth (maybe not as much as pre-pandemic) looking at commuter rail to Barrhaven and Kanata instead of extending the O-Train beyond Fallowfield and Terry Fox. Orleans is close enough to downtown that the O-Train ride won't be ridiculously long, but the other two would be better served by main line railways with fewer stations, if serving commuters is still the goal.

What the Mayor's Task Force had proposed had a lot of value. It just unfortunately ignored the core of the City, as always.

The fairly significant disparity in the three suburbs’ distances from downtown is something I don’t really see discussed in transit planning. The closest part of Orleans is almost half the distance from downtown as the closest parts of Barrhaven and Kanata, which is why phase two distances east and west from downtown are very similar despite the western terminuses getting nowhere near Kanata and Barrhaven. You’d think this would play a much bigger role in public discourse.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Well, you can play with semantics all you like. But you are not actually addressing the issues that I have brought up. It is useless to simply dismiss a potential safety issue with a statement like “that didn’t block the resumption of service anyway.” Maybe it should have. Maybe the risk is considered to be ‘low enough’.

I am taking issue with the way that you are assembling a list of "facts", some of which are out of context as I've already said, and then drawing your own conclusions that are little more than FUD and presenting them like an alarmist.

Here are the facts:
• Restraining rails are a safety measure.
• The restraining rails have been temporarily removed from the curve east of Rideau Station.
• IF the train begins to derail on that curve due to the high wheel climbing the high rail, there will be no restraining rail to prevent continued sideways movement (until the restraining rails are reinstalled).
• The current ‘Slow Order’ for that curve is 15 KPH.
• A train can derail on a tight curve, that is not protected with a suitable restraining rail, even when traveling at a slow speed.
• The city has claimed that the work required to relocate all 16 restraining rails “has been completed.”

Are you keen to dispute any of those facts?

I think you are continuing to misuse those last two "facts".

Yard track is not maintained to the same standards as mainline track.The gauge on curves is also not set nor maintained as precisely as mainline curves, and this is something that was highlighted in the Mott-MacDonald report. The Mott-MacDonald report specifically highlights instances of gauge tightening through yard curves that would contribute to flange climbing. The risk of flange climb is much lower on mainline track where the gauge is kept more in check, and comparing it to low speed derailments in the yard is a stretch at best.

Then, as I've already said more than once, OC Transpo only declared the restraining rail work to be complete in the context of resuming the rest of service on the East side of the system.

Asserting anything more than that from those facts is FUD, like I said above.

At the risk of having OCCheetos complain that I’m not qualified to imagine scenarios; if, for example, dragging equipment under the train kicks up a piece of ballast onto the high rail of a curve, the fact that speed has been adjusted down may not be enough to prevent a derailment, if there is no restraining rail.

Well I'd imagine the fact that the Rideau curve isn't ballasted was taken into account, wouldn't you think?
Resorting to impossible imaginary scenarios to further an argument made up of other miscellaneous "facts" is an odd and frankly concerning approach to any discussion.

There is a reason that safety equipment is added. It is not for the usual scenarios, but the exceptional ones. Unfortunately, there are people who remove safety equipment, replacing it with “I’ll be careful, so nothing could possibly go wrong.” That is when I get most scared.

You still haven't explained your qualifications, but despite that you've accused OC Transpo of "parroting" information, seemingly forgetting that there's a third set of independent eyes (TRA) on the situation.

You can be concerned all you like, but don't act like loosely tying together "facts" is a substitute for being a subject matter expert.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It seems to me that we keep adding new go slow orders.

Why should we not keep putting pressure on to find solutions that eliminate go slow orders. From what you say, we should just not talk about it. No pressure, gives leeway to just extend out solutions, to the point that they may never come. When solutions are measured in years, it is easy to make compromises and cost savings rather than deliver the full solution. By then, everybody will be accustomed to the extra 5 or 10 minutes on every trip, and that is what many officials are hoping for.

This isn't like the Toronto Streetcar where speed has steadily eroded without any plan to ever return to faster operations. OC Transpo has actually provided a fairly clear plan on how it intends to restore normal operations.

You aren't putting pressure on anyone, you're preaching to the choir. You're not "talking about it", you're just repeating the same complaint with flawed comparisons to other systems. It's kind of a nuisance.

This morning on the radio riders were fondly remembering the faster service offered by Transitway buses and now we are seeing rail service cuts (which have not all been publicized) on top of the slower service. For this, we paid $2.1B and soon a whole lot more.

While the original plan had rail replace most cross city trips, we are just beginning to discover that buses can do a better job. So, the original purpose of rail is eroding. Longer trips by rail are becoming non-competitive, which is where rail should have excelled.

How did this become the "original purpose" of rail in Ottawa? Was the reason for building rail not to double the passenger capacity of our main Transit corridor?

What Ottawa needed was capacity more than anything else. I cannot believe that this is still up for debate when we're half way through Stage 2's construction. And no, the REM's station spacing makes it impractical for the needs of Ottawa, especially in the Blair to Tunmey's stretch.

[Horus]

"Permanent" solution indeed.
Restraining rails have not been properly adjusted between Lees and Hurdman it seems.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/o-train-servic...ween-lees-and-hurdman-stations-1.6523522

O-Train service slowed down as crews make 'further track adjustments' between Lees and Hurdman stations
Josh Pringle
CTV News Ottawa Digital Multi-Skilled Journalist

OC Transpo is warning customers to expect delays on the O-Train today, as the light-rail transit system runs on a single track between Lees and Hurdman stations to allow crews to make "further track adjustments" on the eastern section of the system.

The O-Train is running every 15 minutes between Tunney's Pasture and Blair stations, and OC Transpo is enhancing R1 Shuttle Express service to every 5 minutes as the maintenance work is conducted.

OC Transpo announced at 10:12 a.m. Thursday that all service at Hurdman, Lees and uOttawa stations will be on the eastbound platform only, until further notice.

In a memo to Council just after 2 p.m., acting Transit Services general manager Michael Morgan said "further track adjustments" are needed in the area to avoid contact between the restraining rail and the wheel hub on the LRT vehicles.

"During enhanced track inspections put in place since O-Train Line 1 service resumed on Monday, August 14, contact was observed between a restraining rail and the wheels of a light rail vehicle between Hurdman Station and the Rideau River Bridge," Morgan wrote.

"Out of an abundance of caution, O-Train Line 1 is now running on one track between Hurdman and Lees Station to make further track adjustments in this area."

Line 1 service will continue to operate between Tunney's Pasture and Blair stations approximately every 15 minutes.

...

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by Horus

"Permanent" solution indeed.
Restraining rails have not been properly adjusted between Lees and Hurdman it seems.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/o-train-servic...ween-lees-and-hurdman-stations-1.6523522

The restraining rail adjustments are not claimed to be the final solution the rebuild of the bogey ‘cartridge’ design is.

Notwithstanding, this is comically bad after such an extended time adjusting these rails before the recent return to service.

[rocketphish]

LRT trains back to full service after shift to single-track service because of more restraining rail issues

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Published Aug 17, 2023 • Last updated 12 hours ago • 2 minute read

Just days after OC Transpo proclaimed it had a permanent fix for its troublesome curves, LRT service was reduced to one track on a portion of the Confederation Line on Thursday because of a rail problem.

The glitch reduced service to one train every 15 minutes, instead of the four-minute rush-hour service promised this week by Transit General Manager Renée Amilcar.

All trains were rerouted onto the eastbound track between Hurdman and uOttawa stations after inspectors found the train’s wheels were rubbing against a restraining rail on a curved section of the westbound track.

However, just before 9 p.m., a memo to the mayor and members of council from Michael Morgan, the director of rail construction and acting general manager of transit services, said that Rideau Transit Group had been able to complete adjustments to the restraining rail between uOttawa and Hurdman Station, allowing resumption of service on both the eastbound and westbound tracks and at all platforms.

Restraining rails are a third rail installed on curves as a safety feature to guide the train in the event of a derailment. But contact with the restraining rail has been blamed for the rapid wear and tear on the wheel-hub assembly of the Alstom Citadis light-rail vehicles.

Last week, Amilcar announced that all 16 restraining rails had been adjusted so that there would be no contact. The work was completed during the 28-day shutdown of the Confederation Line after workers found a wheel-hub assembly that was loose and leaking grease.

Thursday’s track reduction was done “out of an abundance of caution,” according to an earlier memo to council from Morgan.

“To accommodate further track assessment and make the necessary adjustments, trains are not operating on the section of westbound track between Hurdman and uOttawa stations. No contact has been observed elsewhere on the line, and therefore it is safe to continue rail operations on the remainder of the system,” Morgan said.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...-line-after-more-restraining-rail-issues