Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

My comment from earlier this week.



Major fail!

What is the answer? I am totally shocked that the issues with rail are not getting resolved. I am even shocked with the number of problems that we are experiencing. We can expect early startup problems but this many? Rail service should be much more reliable than buses under today's weather conditions. Not the case. We did not have nearly the amount of snow that was predicted by the start of service today but only 7 trains were available. I am now afraid that this winter will end without resolution and many of the problems will repeat again next winter.

We'll hear later this morning I guess- press conference 11am.

At the last TC meeting they mentioned that the interim fix for the power issues would be to build and install roofs over the inductors. I think they had already completed this on a couple of trains but the rest were still in progress. They may not have been ready in time for this storm.

My speculation was that if they only had it installed on a subset of trains, they might purposely only launch those trains in order to avoid foreseeable issues. But then early this morning 2 trains had power issues... so...

We are going to continue to see winter issues until the inductor issue and switch heater issues can be fully rectified.

[SidetrackedSue]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

We'll hear later this morning I guess- press conference 11am...

We are going to continue to see winter issues until the inductor issue and switch heater issues can be fully rectified.

I've actually been surprised that there haven't been switch issues today. Conditions were ripe for them.

As well, RTM caught a break last night with so little snowfall. They say they keep the rails cleared by running the trains overnight but last night, with the lines down, they couldn't do that for the full length of the system. So I had expected that to be an issue this morning.

As usual, surprise!, not switches, not unplowed rails, but other stuff causing issues.

The only positive from today so far was Hubley saying he'd talk to the city manager about replacing RTM since they appear to be unable to do the job.

This interview at the 9:25 mark, before Carroll tore a strip off Hubley saying what so many people have wanted to say to Hubley.

https://www.iheartradio.ca/580-cfra/podc...t-transit-issues-1.10609384?mode=Article

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by SidetrackedSue

The only positive from today so far was Hubley saying he'd talk to the city manager about replacing RTM since they appear to be unable to do the job.

I'm not sure that is a positive. The transition to someone new would likely be a huge mess. And guess who RTM subcontracts the train maintenance to... Alstom! Are we going to replace them too? They're the manufacturer, so I don't think so.

[lrt's friend]

Route 10 cannot negotiate the windy downtown connection with the Confederation Line today. I never liked how Route 10 was designed downtown even beyond the stupid Lyon terminus.

[lrt's friend]

This interview at the 9:25 mark, before Carroll tore a strip off Hubley saying what so many people have wanted to say to Hubley.

https://www.iheartradio.ca/580-cfra/...4?mode=Article

Well, that was a very abrasive interview. Probably not productive in moving this issue forward, but I can only imagine, that this must be reflective of the feelings of many transit users who have to use the Confederation Line regularly.

Anecdotally we are seeing people moving away from transit. The most recent comment being the increase of the number of winter cyclists because it is more reliable. For most, it is pretty extreme to move to winter cycling given our climate and the road conditions (snow, ice, puddles and all the dangerous potholes).

[MalcolmTucker]

Yeah, issuing a notice to RTM will put a scare into them - I wonder what the terms are for a technical default. Will have to google later.



I wonder how much it comes down to using LRVs which were not designed originally with very regular higher speed and high frequency service in mind. Certainly the Siemens U2 heritage derived LRVs seem to have much more resilience in their design (leaving aside the doors, which seems to be an issue with all new rolling stock).

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

At the last TC meeting they mentioned that the interim fix for the power issues would be to build and install roofs over the inductors. I think they had already completed this on a couple of trains but the rest were still in progress. They may not have been ready in time for this storm.

So I think they said this morning that 18 or 19 LRVs have the inductor covers installed. The ones that had power issues this morning did not have them yet. They expect to be able to complete installing the covers on the entire fleet in 8-10 days.

The trains running on the line right now all have the covers on them, so hopefully we will have no power issues for the rest of the day.

They should have kept the ones without covers in the yard today, even if it meant that we would be short on trains. 18 LRVs would be enough for 9 trains.

[lrt's friend]

According to Joanne Chianello, the trains that had power problems on Wednesday had inductor covers

Joanne Chianello
@jchianello
·
1h
Apparently the trains that had power issues last night did have the covers around the inductors (an issue we heard about last week). #ottnews

[TheMatth69]

Up to this point I really don't know what's wrong with our trains. The Citadis line of train is world wide. They have trains running in every type of climate you can think of... What did Alstom do differently with our trains is a mystery.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by Brannwagon

This may have already been discussed - I’d be shocked if it hasn’t - but has anyone else noticed that the vast majority of issues seem to occur between St. Laurent and Blair stations? I know this is anecdotal, but it feels like I’m reading about R1 service between St. Laurent and Blair way more often than anywhere else.

I think you're right; I don't think I've ever personally seen R1 service between Tunney's and downtown. Though it probably has happened at least once.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

According to Joanne Chianello, the trains that had power problems on Wednesday had inductor covers

I think that's a typo on Joanne's part; I'd like to see a clarification. I watched the press conference and Mr. Lauch said that the trains that had the issues did NOT have the covers on yet.

(See https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.4830110 from about 2:00 to 2:30).

[TheMatth69]

We also need to find a way to troubleshoot all trains with breakdowns to manual mode. Because most trains breaking down are still able to move but only manually. With trains operating manually in winter conditions maybe we would have more wiggleroom to bring a train to the nearest terminus station and take them out of service once it's done

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

I think that's a typo on Joanne's part; I'd like to see a clarification. I watched the press conference and Mr. Lauch said that the trains that had the issues did NOT have the covers on yet.

(See https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.4830110 from about 2:00 to 2:30).

Thanks for the clarification. I am sure it is easy to mistype on a phone when trying to report close to live on twitter.

[Kitchissippi]

I see lawsuits left and right. Aside from withholding maintenance payment or threatening to fire the company, there must be a way to get money back for faulty products and shoddy construction from the original contract.

Funny how back in post #8426 I thought the tops of the trains looked unfinished and exposed to snow

[TransitZilla]

^ In the video above, Mr. Lauch further says that they are installing covers on 6 vehicles (3 trains) "as we speak" and the entire fleet will be done in 8-10 days.

I don't understand why they would have launched trains today without the covers if they had 9 trains with them installed. It's better to go with 9 and avoid delays due to broken down trains. It was entirely foreseeable that vehicles without the covers would have issues today.

[SidetrackedSue]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

^ In the video above, Mr. Lauch further says that they are installing covers on 6 vehicles (3 trains) "as we speak" and the entire fleet will be done in 8-10 days.

I don't understand why they would have launched trains today without the covers if they had 9 trains with them installed. It's better to go with 9 and avoid delays due to broken down trains. It was entirely foreseeable that vehicles without the covers would have issues today.

The problem is with the wording 'power' issues. There are two I know about and an undefined third. First problem, the overhead wire power problem. That took out 2 trains. Then there's the arcing issue (which took out at least one in the past 24 hours) and finally they talked about 30 minutes without power in the yard last night after 12:30. No-one asked for details about that as far as I could tell except maybe that was the reason for the comment "power issues aren't problems with the power supply."


Chianello tweeted:

Apparently the trains that had power issues last night did have the covers around the inductors.

I believe she is referring to the trains that were evacuated outside Tremblay and Cyrville. Lauch said they were out of service while they were being checked over. So that means that of 9 train sets with the covers, 2 were out of service therefore only 7 were put into service today.

Three more were out due to heavy maintenance. Then the two last evening (one was arcing issues, the other door?) and finally, I've lost track of what was wrong with the train this morning in the tunnel (the third one that needed evacuation.) But it would have been 'covered' to protect from arcing yet that train is also out of service now.

That accounts for 8 trains. With 6 or 7 running, we are still 'missing' ~2 trains. I'm assuming they are in getting their chimneys put on or perhaps still waiting for their panels to be buffed out after the in yard collision last month?

[TransitZilla]

^

The inductor covers address the arcing issue. As far as I can tell, we have had 4 trains with arcing issues in the past 24 hours:

-last night at Tremblay
-last night at uOttawa
-this morning at Rideau
-this morning at Tremblay

The overhead wire issue was a separate issue not related to the inductors. But apparently that train was removed from service for inspection, even though the train apparently stopped short of the overhead wire breakage.

[lrt's friend]

I don't understand why we are having some of these electrical issues. Surely, all cities in northern and central Europe experience wet snow from time to time in winter. It seems that if we get the least amount of this weather, trains fail. The manufacturer should have these trains better prepared from the outset. We are not talking about extreme weather here. This storm was not nearly as bad as originally predicted and the trains failed as soon as the snow started.

We should not need to have the mayor asking for people to stay home because our transit system is expected to fail.

[Uhuniau]

All four train incidents were due to arcing?

[lrt's friend]

Now they are down to 6 trains.