Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There is no way they can do more damage than what they are doing now with multi-day failures every few months. I live beside the line. This week my wife is taking the car to work. She says this is the worst transit system she has ever experienced. I doubt she's alone in that sentiment. At this point, they'd be better off with a major rehabilitation program, even if they have to close for months. As it stands, nobody is giving up their car for this kind of service.

Imagine if you will, somewhere in Canada, not Ottawa.They are looking at building a grade separated LRT. It has cleared many hurdles, including public opinion. And then a report comes out listing all the reasons for all the faults that a line has had. It also makes a long list of other faults it has. It then lists a high cost to fix those faults. Could you imagine how public opinion would turn away from LRTs to the point where it is Subways or nothing?

[orleans_man]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

They need to get in an outside engineering consultant and do a full design review with a defined reliability target. Fixing this is probably going to require several hundred million dollars and a few years. The sooner they get started on a proper fix, the better.

Agreed. I think these conversations should start getting real ASAP. We have 2.1 Billion dollar core system that has fundamental issues.

It serves as the foundation to even larger projects Phase 2 (4.6 Billion) and maybe a Phase 3 (4.85 Billion).

Here we are with 12 Billion in planned transit spending with a core system that is hobbling along - This is after 3 years and the "blessing" of a pandemic that allowed it to operate with significantly less volume and frequency and should have allowed RTM and OC Transpo get things "on track".

With things struggling so fundamentally, drastic action and resolution need to be taken, I really don't think we can wait. If need to spend 100 Million or 500 Million or even a Billion, so be it, Phase 3 may have to wait either way, the system is broken as is.

Do we wait 3 more years when Phase 2 is rolling out and we've shelved even more drivers and buses to take on radical change and ideas? I don't think so, the time to act is now... Welcome aboard new mayor and council

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Imagine if you will, somewhere in Canada, not Ottawa.They are looking at building a grade separated LRT. It has cleared many hurdles, including public opinion. And then a report comes out listing all the reasons for all the faults that a line has had. It also makes a long list of other faults it has. It then lists a high cost to fix those faults. Could you imagine how public opinion would turn away from LRTs to the point where it is Subways or nothing?

Entirely grade seperated LRT's like the confederation line should be avoided. Trams running like a metro. That makes no sense at all. That's why they are extremely rare and only implemented when there is absolutely no other choice.
Doesn't mean we should avoid other types of LRT though.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I don’t see how months of closure are necessary. The problems appear to be mostly with the rolling stock and the overhead lines. It is expensive but don’t see how that causes major delays.

We have no idea what a full engineering design review would find. That's my worst case scenario. But for the most part, I agree. It's unlikely to require months of closure.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Imagine if you will, somewhere in Canada, not Ottawa.They are looking at building a grade separated LRT. It has cleared many hurdles, including public opinion. And then a report comes out listing all the reasons for all the faults that a line has had. It also makes a long list of other faults it has. It then lists a high cost to fix those faults. Could you imagine how public opinion would turn away from LRTs to the point where it is Subways or nothing?

This is terrible logic.

You're arguing that Ottawa shouldn't look after the concerns of residents because a review might impact projects elsewhere? As a resident and taxpayer, I fail to see why I should care about transit projects elsewhere. But also, if I lived in the elsewhere, I'd sure want to know if my city was going to spend billions on a lemon of a transit system.

Also, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with grade separated LRT. Plenty of cities have it around the world. Should be easier than at grade LRT where you have collision risk with cars and pedestrians. The problems here are unique to this design and build .

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is terrible logic.

You're arguing that Ottawa shouldn't look after the concerns of residents because a review might impact projects elsewhere? As a resident and taxpayer, I fail to see why I should care about transit projects elsewhere. But also, if I lived in the elsewhere, I'd sure want to know if my city was going to spend billions on a lemon of a transit system.

Also, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with grade separated LRT. Plenty of cities have it around the world. Should be easier than at grade LRT where you have collision risk with cars and pedestrians. The problems here are unique to this design and build .

No.
I am arguing to tread carefully.
Imagine they find that the reason was due to something that is common on all new planned LRT systems in Canada?
Or, what if it is a common thing, but other places have mitigated it properly?

It is kinds of like whether you want a full compressive look at your car, or just a basic inspection. The problem is, it could point out things that are known things that are mitigated, but it will then have the public wanting them removed.
Take the mess of sexual harassment in the military for example. Those that have served know it is a known issue. By publicly making the problems causing it publicly known has not done anything good to anyone. The reason is because instead of fixing the problems, it merely makes the problems more hidden and a blind witch hunt is happening.

So, we need to either accept the fallout and go for it, or tread carefully, and work through the problems.
Neither is good.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

T

Also, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with grade separated LRT. Plenty of cities have it around the world. Should be easier than at grade LRT where you have collision risk with cars and pedestrians. The problems here are unique to this design and build .

Plenty of cities?? Name the cities that run fully grade separated low floor tram trains like Ottawa.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Plenty of cities?? Name the cities that run fully grade separated low floor tram trains like Ottawa.

Not always fully grade separated. But keep in mind the intention was only ever to run at grade in the burbs. Not in the portions of Stage 1. This would have made it a lot like tram-trains elsewhere. Major portions grade separated are not that uncommon. We just built a lemon of a system.

[Marshsparrow]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I think you are mistaken. Footage of the September 2021 derailment was released in July 2022, but there have been no other mainline derailments since September 2021.

A lightning strike took out a section of overhead line at Lees station in July 2022, and only that section was closed for about four and a half days.

"Only that section was closed for about four and a half days" - seriously, like this is acceptable and just run of the mill?

I had to put it this way to a commuter who only drives:
If you drove down the 417, forced to switch to another car (fighting for that car) and then have to switch to another car and it takes you 3x as long to get to your destination - is this a system that you as a taxpayer are proud you paid for? Would you subject your elderly parent or children to this mess?

If you pay property taxes and think that 17% of all property taxes goes to OC Transpo - happy with that return on investment?

Mark Sutcliffe is apparently the only person in Ottawa who needs to figure out what the "issues" are - 4 years in and this is what we got.

[Truenorth00]

Well at least we now know he doesn't use the line
And so he doesn't care about it.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Well at least we now know he doesn't use the line
And so he doesn't care about it.

I think we already knew that. His top transportation policy is to combat the alleged war against cars.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Even when they live in the locale they are in charge of,they wouldn't use the service, so why should they care? Maybe part of the requirement for all municipal politicians is that they must use the transit system for the month of February for all city business they conduct.

Interestingly, Glen Gower did exactly that in 2019 and documented every day on his YouTube channel. He still regularly takes transit to both his ward office and City Hall.

[rocketphish]

Day five for city LRT woes; no word when full service will resume

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Published Jan 09, 2023 • 5 minute read

Ottawa commuters face a sixth day of transit chaos Tuesday as OC Transpo continued to provide partial service on the Confederation Line and struggled to clear and repair a central section of track that has been partially or fully blocked since Wednesday night’s ice storm.

In an afternoon update to city council and the media, OC Transpo General Manager Renée Amilcar said Tuesday morning’s service will be the same as Monday, with five-minute service with four trains each on a western section between Tunney’s Pasture and uOttawa stations and an eastern section between Blair and Tremblay stations, R1 buses are still needed to bridge the gap in service. The buses will run all the way from Blair to the Rideau Centre and at intervals of between five and 15 minutes.

One track between Lees and Tremblay has now been cleared and maintenance crews expect to remove two stopped trains on the other track Tuesday morning, Amilcar’s memo said. Crews are also working to repair a short section of the overhead power lines that have been damaged and will then review and inspect the entire system before resuming full service.

Amilcar didn’t say when the Confederation Line will be completely back in service.

Meanwhile, riders complained of overcrowded buses and long delays Monday, which was the first day back for many students in the region.

Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper was one of several city councillors to use OC Transpo to get to work Monday, boarding a bus in Orléans for the ride to city hall. The roughly 20 km trip took just under two hours, Leiper reported as he live-tweeted his commute.

Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr left her home near Randall Avenue at 7:30 a.m. and reported arriving at city hall at 9:18 a.m. after her bus and train journey. She noted only takes 75 minutes to walk to city hall from her house.

Riders complained that many of the R1 buses were packed and driving through stops without stopping. OC Transpo said it was doing its best to add more buses.

The transit system’s woes began Wednesday night when a freezing rain storm — a fairly mild one on that — stopped a train just before midnight near Lees Station because of a build up of ice on the overhead catenary system (OCS) that supplies power to the trains. Soon after that, a second train on the opposite track also stopped, completely blocking the Confederation Line in both directions.

With no trains passing through the area, ice continued to build up on the OCS. On Friday, maintenance crews sent a third train with a special attachment that was supposed to clear the ice from the overhead line. That only made things worse. Not only did it not clear the ice, it also pulled down a section of the power line.

Crews then had to manually smash the ice off the line from bucket trucks. On Saturday, a fourth train was sent to try to tow the disabled trains but it too broke the OCS and became stuck. By Sunday, one of the the tracks was cleared, but crews were still working to clear the remaining stopped train and repair and test the power lines.

Laura Shantz, who sits on the board for Ottawa Transit Riders, said she’s frustrated by the delays.

“The freezing rain storm was nothing out of the ordinary. This was not a repeat of the ice storm. We had a few millimetres of freezing rain and and slipped and slid for a day, then everything else went back to normal. But our transit system is still down,” said Shantz, who opted to bike to work on Monday instead of taking transit.

But Shantz did commend OC Transpo for keeping riders better informed about what was happening

“Credit where it’s due. They’ve been doing a far better job than during previous outages.”

Still, Shantz thinks the city can do better and should have a better plan in place for breakdowns. Toronto runs buses parallel to its subway lines at all times, whereas OC Transpo only starts up its parallel R1 bus service if there is a breakdown on the Confederation line.

“One of the huge problems we have now is that many of our community buses get pulled to run that R1 service. So many people never planned to take the train but they might find that the bus that they need has been cancelled.”

She also worries about what plans are in place to help transit riders who use a wheelchair or mobility device if they’re trapped on a train as happened to about 40 passengers stranded during last week’s stoppage. Those passengers sat on the train for for an hour before being led to safety along the tracks. That would be impossible for someone in a wheelchair, she said.

Speaking on CFRA Monday morning, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said the city’s priority is to get the trains moving again before looking at how to prevent such outages in the future.

“This event is incredibly frustrating and disappointing and a sympathize with all the passengers and residents of Ottawa who are finding it really aggravating with having to deal with this again. I’m just as frustrated as everyone else,” Sutcliffe said.

The Confederation Line isn’t the only LRT that struggles during freezing rain storms. Freezing rain caused Kitchener-Waterloo’s ION service to shut down in December and in March of last year when a build up of ice on its overhead power line broke the electrical contact between the trains and their power source. In each case, service resumed after just a few hours. The ION entered service in June 2019, a few months before Ottawa’s Confederation Line.

What’s complicated the situation in Ottawa is the damage to the OCS. OC Transpo’s Alstom trains can’t move without electrical power and currently the only way to tow them is to use another train, which itself needs electrical power to move. At a media briefing Friday, Rideau Maintenance Group acknowledged that it needs a better way to move a stopped train off the tracks.

OC Transpo had tried using a special device called a winter carbon strip, a heavy duty attachment to the train’s pantograph designed to scrape the ice from the line and improve the electrical contact. The strips can even be equipped with a heating element to melt the ice.

Elsewhere, researchers have successfully experimented with coating the OCS with various alcohol solutions like those used to deice aircraft.

Trains on the Trillium Line that run south from Bayview Station are powered by diesel, not electricity, so would not be affected by freezing rain in the same way. The Trillium Line is scheduled to resume service along an expanded route next fall.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...es-no-word-when-full-service-will-resume

[rocketphish]

Why does watching Ottawa's LRT feel like Groundhog Day?
That déjà vu feeling is here once again as winter's mere existence surprised no one, except perhaps the LRT architects.

Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Published Jan 09, 2023 • 3 minute read

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the iconic Bill Murray film Groundhog Day, so it only makes sense that it is ripe for a sequel. But who knew that sequel would be filmed in Ottawa?

OK, there isn’t really a sequel, at least not of which I’m aware. But in my imaginary updated version, cynical weatherman Phil Connors is sent to Ottawa, where people wait in anticipation of seeing not the famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, but rather the appearance of an animated LRT train — let’s call him Alstom.

If Alstom sees any signs of winter at all, he slowly drags his screeching square wheels, jammed doors, or iced-up overhead catenary system back to the repair shop. And winter continues for nobody-knows-how-long. But if Alstom doesn’t see a wintery landscape, well, Ottawans are not sure what would happen then. We think he’d go into service, ferrying Ottawans to and fro. Unless maybe there’s lightning.

But on this particular occasion for Connors, our weatherman stands dumbly at the Lees station with stranded commuters making derisive jokes. In the first movie, he refers to groundhog Punxsutawney Phil as a rat. In the sequel, he calls the O-Train a “Zero Train.” When Alstom never appears, Connors has to wait another day, and then another, and another…

That Groundhog Day feeling has descended on the LRT, beginning last Wednesday evening, when winter once again surprised no one, except perhaps the LRT architects, by appearing in Ottawa and, on this occasion, disabling a portion of the O-Train’s Confederation Line.

Beyond simply waiting for climate change to entirely eliminate winters in Ottawa, what will it take to repair Ottawa’s LRT? We clearly can’t take a mulligan and start over, but perhaps we could better understand what root issues caused these failures and address them so they don’t recur. For example, in its analysis of the Aug. 8, 2021 LRT derailment, the light rail manufacturer Alstom cited such factors as excessive loads on the axle assembly, particularly on sharp curves, as well as the track alignment and the wheel/rail interface, the latter suggesting, in essence, that the trains and the tracks were never a perfect fit to begin with.

Worth noting is that Rideau Transit Group, for whom Alstom was a sub-contractor, disputes the manufacturer’s conclusion without offering a root-cause analysis of its own. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which ultimately gets the final say, has yet to issue a ruling on the matter.

In other words, we just don’t know. Can we fix it, or do we simply have a lemon on our hands? Similarly with the overhead catenary system, will train reliability always be at the mercy of lightning and freezing rain? Shouldn’t there be a deeper analysis of that system?

One thing that has been made abundantly clear is that the various global firms that built the different systems for Stage 1 of Ottawa’s LRT did a terrible job of communicating with one another to make sure that they integrated properly. Imagine if the French and British engineers of the 50-km underwater Chunnel failed to tell each other where they were starting from and finishing, instead just crossing their fingers that the tunnels would meet up.

The definition of insanity, we’re taught, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Yet that’s essentially what’s happening. Construction of Stage 2 marches on, using largely the same specifications that brought us Stage 1; same trains, same overhead catenary system. In his updates to the mayor and council in recent days, the city’s transit services department manager, Renee Amilcar, has repeatedly indicated that the number one priority is the safety of customers and employees. If that were truly the case, why has the city not halted Stage 2 construction until the problems with Stage 1 have been fully identified and fixed?

Pausing a project of this magnitude isn’t something to consider or undertake lightly. It would be enormously expensive. But would it be more expensive than not getting it right the first time?

Ottawans don’t need a weatherman to tell engineers what to expect each winter, but here’s one anyways: “You want a prediction about the weather?” Connors asks in Groundhog Day. “I’ll give you a winter prediction. It’s going to be cold, it’s going to be grey, and it’s going to last you for the rest of your life.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...hing-ottawas-lrt-feel-like-groundhog-day

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Marshsparrow

"Only that section was closed for about four and a half days" - seriously, like this is acceptable and just run of the mill?

I had to put it this way to a commuter who only drives:
If you drove down the 417, forced to switch to another car (fighting for that car) and then have to switch to another car and it takes you 3x as long to get to your destination - is this a system that you as a taxpayer are proud you paid for? Would you subject your elderly parent or children to this mess?

If you pay property taxes and think that 17% of all property taxes goes to OC Transpo - happy with that return on investment?

Mark Sutcliffe is apparently the only person in Ottawa who needs to figure out what the "issues" are - 4 years in and this is what we got.

To put it into some perspective, I think sections of the 417 collectively spent more days closed for bridge replacements than the LRT did all year. Obviously different circumstances, but a lightning strike isn't necessarily an inherent failure of the infrastructure.

The replacement service is certainly problematic, but the reality is that taxpayers are more interested in minimizing the amount of money that OC Transpo gets rather than getting better returns on investment.

OC Transpo can't afford to run better replacement service, because well... they can't afford it. There's literally no money for that after two decades of nothing but budget trimming. The argument that we spend "lots" of money on OC Transpo for poor service is dumb, because when you really dig into the details, it turns out good service is expensive—more so than OC Transpo.

You want good service? Be willing to invest in it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I think we already knew that. His top transportation policy is to combat the alleged war against cars.

Jeez. Never realized he was that bad on transit. So he's Ottawa's Rob Ford?

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Jeez. Never realized he was that bad on transit. So he's Ottawa's Rob Ford?

I’ll let you judge for yourself. He claims to support all modes of transportation, but claiming that there is a war on cars is over the top.

• Video Link

[Marshsparrow]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

To put it into some perspective, I think sections of the 417 collectively spent more days closed for bridge replacements than the LRT did all year. Obviously different circumstances, but a lightning strike isn't necessarily an inherent failure of the infrastructure.

The replacement service is certainly problematic, but the reality is that taxpayers are more interested in minimizing the amount of money that OC Transpo gets rather than getting better returns on investment.

OC Transpo can't afford to run better replacement service, because well... they can't afford it. There's literally no money for that after two decades of nothing but budget trimming. The argument that we spend "lots" of money on OC Transpo for poor service is dumb, because when you really dig into the details, it turns out good service is expensive—more so than OC Transpo.

You want good service? Be willing to invest in it.

Ummm I think you missed the point - it wasn't about level of investment.
OC Transpo could have limitless funds and still be the cluster f**ck it is.
Poor management, top official who doesn't even live in the city, reports that gather dust, no one held accountable and on and on.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by acottawa

They also run a train every 90 seconds like clockwork.

Yeah I've also spent some time on the Moscow Metro. If I recall they also have one LRT line that has much greater headways and is far less reliable.

It is more than clear we need new rolling stock. On a long-term basis that has been clear from the start but it's starting to look more urgent. If the vehicle provided can't meet the specifications they should take them back where they can be used as a tram and provide us with something heavy enough to deal with our capacity and weather.

[Truenorth00]

I don't know how we can be clear the fault is all on the rolling stock. It could be the curves along the route. It could be poor work or parts on the OCS that caused the recent failure. Etc.

I think the Swiss Cheese model applies here. We likely have several failures that are lining up. Exactly why they need a full design review.