Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Andrew_G

There is almost no chance that this is "terrible" news. The most likely scenario was an issue moving through the switch (something similar happened a few years back with a train entering Carleton Station on the Trillium Line). What the media tries to make this out to be, however, is another story.

https://twitter.com/KimberleyMolina/status/1124353634391732224
"Troy Charter says one set of wheels came off the tracks around 5 a.m. this morning while they were practicing “launch activities.” He says there were no injuries and no major damage to infrastructure. Train has now been put back on the tracks and a review is being conducted to find out what happened. He says the train was travelling slowly when it derailed. "

The switch at Carleton was a spring switch though. I'm pretty sure all the switches in the yard (and on the rest of the Confederation Line) are powered.
Hopefully the train didn't receive too much damage. The other derailment basically retired that train (although that was going to happen within months anyway).

Luckily we have two extra trainsets almost ready to go just in case?

The Reddit poster suggests that it was an error in the operation of the switch (although, by who?) and that protocols in the yard will be changed.
They also suggested that this won't impact the launch date.

[Andrew_G]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

The switch at Carleton was a spring switch though. I'm pretty sure all the switches in the yard (and on the rest of the Confederation Line) are powered.
Hopefully the train didn't receive too much damage. The other derailment basically retired that train (although that was going to happen within months anyway).

Luckily we have two extra trainsets almost ready to go just in case?

The Reddit poster suggests that it was an error in the operation of the switch (although, by who?) and that protocols in the yard will be changed.
They also suggested that this won't impact the launch date.

Good point. From the looks of it there does not seem to be much damage, certainly nothing to the point that would necessitate retirement/major refit. Plus we have the spares as you mentioned just in case. I would also lean towards this not impacting whatever the current launch date is.

[rocketphish]

Video of LRT workers wandering around scratching their heads:

• Video Link

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

I am an old senior who remembers when Ottawa was a "small" city. Many of my vintage and even younger still see it as such. As the city has grown and developed , their mindset has not. They see Ottawa as they saw it in their youth.

This is very strange to me as someone who didn't grow up in Ottawa. This city has always been in the top 5-6 largest metros of the country. The Ottawa-Gatineau CMA has been over half a million since the mid 70s. How anybody ever saw Ottawa as small is beyond me. Was even more strange to me when that comment was made during the transit presentation when it was clear Ottawa itself was going to cross a million residents in a decade. At that point, it's just nuts to still insist that Ottawa was too small for rail transit.

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

It is frustrating at times seeing that they have not grown with the city. I am not sure that even a "subway" will convince them. Personally I am glad I have lived to see an LRT and bigger buildings and other developments.

I think LRT, especially after Stage 2, will be an absolute shock to these folks and their view of Ottawa.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is very strange to me as someone who didn't grow up in Ottawa. This city has always been in the top 5-6 largest metros of the country. The Ottawa-Gatineau CMA has been over half a million since the mid 70s. How anybody ever saw Ottawa as small is beyond me. Was even more strange to me when that comment was made during the transit presentation when it was clear Ottawa itself was going to cross a million residents in a decade. At that point, it's just nuts to still insist that Ottawa was too small for rail transit.

People seem to forget that Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver weren't always as big as they are today. When they built their systems decades ago, they were just about the size of Ottawa. These small minder individuals also seem to forget Calgary and Edmonton, both of which were less than half our size today when they started their own rail networks in the 70s.

[zzptichka]

So who exactly came up with the word "derailed" anyway? I'm yet to see a train off the rails.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Just think of what it costs in diesel, driver wages and bus replacement costs to move 10 000 passengers per hour on buses, 50 pax at a time. Compare that to moving them on trams carrying 300-600 (latter if twinned), using electricity, on light rail vehicles with service lives that are twice as long as buses. Think of how much diesel prices vary compared to electricity prices and what that does for OC Transpo's budgeting at the moment. Think of how much worse this gets with the carbon tax going forward.

I think at one point it was estimated that LRT might save OC Transpo upto $100 million annually. Just the 600 employees they were going to layoff after Stage 1 adds up to ~$40 million in savings if I had to ballpark it.

Unfortunately the plan seems to be to spend the operational savings on the LRT mortgage payments, not to redirect the savings into transit improvements.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

So who exactly came up with the word "derailed" anyway? I'm yet to see a train off the rails.

https://twitter.com/KimberleyMolina/status/1124354255702376448

[J.OT13]

Nice picture of Hurdman.


https://twitter.com/Danny_Ocean15/status/1123794974858973193

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

https://twitter.com/KimberleyMolina/status/1124354255702376448

Sure looks like a derailment to me.

Derailment isn't necessarily the entire trains off the tracks exploding in a ball of fire. As soon as one steel wheel is off the track, it's a derailment.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Sure looks like a derailment to me.

Derailment isn't necessarily the entire trains off the tracks exploding in a ball of fire. As soon as one steel wheel is off the track, it's a derailment.

It does look like it derailed the operational test in addition to the train itself, they are definitely running less often today.

[LeadingEdgeBoomer]

Could a careless person have left something on the track to cause this(e,g, a steel tool).

Does our LRT have any derailing devices?

A derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling (blocking or compromising) of a rail track (or collision with anything present on the track, such as a person, a train or a fallen branch) by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock.[1] The device works by derailing the equipment as it rolls over or through it.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by LeadingEdgeBoomer

Could a careless person have left something on the track to cause this(e,g, a steel tool).

Does our LRT have any derailing devices?

There are a couple visible in the photo published by the Citizen (although they were almost certainly put there after the fact).



Apparently, it had to do with the actual operation of the switch, whatever that means.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

There are a couple visible in the photo published by the Citizen (although they were almost certainly put there after the fact).



Apparently, it had to do with the actual operation of the switch, whatever that means.

Sounds like human error then, not a defect.

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

It does look like it derailed the operational test in addition to the train itself, they are definitely running less often today.

I was at Tremblay Station today at noon and trains seemed to be running every 5 minutes.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

So who exactly came up with the word "derailed" anyway? I'm yet to see a train off the rails.

Am I just imagining it, or does that circular blue sign in the middle of the photo, which appears to be attached to the track itself, say "DERAIL" on it?

[rocketphish]

LRT train derailment at Belfast Yards a 'perfectly normal' occurrence, says RTG

Joanne Laucius & Drake Fenton, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: May 3, 2019

The derailment of a two-car LRT train that happened less than 100 metres from the Belfast Road train yard was a “perfectly normal” occurrence, the general manager of Rideau Transit Group told reporters Friday.

The train yard tracks are very tight together near the train yard. “It places the train in a difficult position. We don’t like when it happens. A derailment in a yard happens,” said Claude Jacob.

Two of the train’s 10 wheels left the track at about 5 a.m. Friday, said the city’s director of transit operations, Troy Charter. No one was hurt.

“Our system, our people, our resources responded appropriately,” said Charter. “This was a minor setback.”

Derailment is a technical term, said Charter. “It was not a situation where the train was on its side.”

The incident occurred at low speed while workers were testing to see what launch would be like. It took a couple of hours to return the wheels to the rail.

Charter said there was no reason to believe the tracks caused the derailment.

“We are taking every effort to make sure the system is in the state of readiness our customers expect,” he said. “We are doing a detailed review to make sure it will be a safe and reliable system for our customers.”

It is still unclear when the LRT will be ready for the public to ride. An update is to be presented next Friday.

A photo of the scene showed part of the train off the tracks with roughly a dozen city workers gathered around the front of the train.

Ottawa police were not called to the scene, nor was Ottawa fire.

Ottawa’s LRT construction has been the recent subject of numerous issues.

The Rideau Transit Group, the construction consortium responsible for building the transit system, said earlier this year it would miss its March 31 deadline to hand over a completed Stage 1 LRT to the city. The project has now missed three deadlines and no official new target date has been set for the city takeover, though the city hopes for a summer launch date.

Inspection reports obtained by this newspaper suggested shoddy work inside the Confederation Line tunnel will probably mean ongoing water leakage.

And, based on internal documents, the CBC reported that the Stage 1 LRT trains might not be tough enough to tackle Ottawa’s winters.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/lrt-train-derails-at-belfast-yards-no-one-injured

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Am I just imagining it, or does that circular blue sign in the middle of the photo, which appears to be attached to the track itself, say "DERAIL" on it?

They're derailing devices meant to derail any runaway trains. The idea being, a derailed train is better than a train running directly into workers, or another train.

They were used throughout the line while station construction was taking place.

[Gat-Train]

LRT train derailment at Belfast Yards a 'perfectly normal' occurrence, says RTG

I can't wait until two weeks after launch, when pieces of the train start flying off and RTG says "oh yeah that's totally supposed to happen don't worry about it"

[daud]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

I can't wait until two weeks after launch, when pieces of the train start flying off and RTG says "oh yeah that's totally supposed to happen don't worry about it"

this pretty much encapsulates the mindset of many in the city right now. I know there are a lot of optimistic posters on this board and I just hope they are more right.

The trains look fantastic, the line and stations look great. But it has to work. That is sort of a key element in this