Confederation Line back to full service after multi-day LRT shutdown
Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Published Jan 10, 2023 • 3 minute read
Full service on the Confederation Line resumed Tuesday night, nearly six full days after a portion of Ottawa’s LRT system was knocked offline by a freezing rain storm.
Crews removed the last of two stranded trains during the evening and have completed repairs to the damaged overhead catenary system (OCS), which snapped in two places when maintenance workers tried to remove a build-up of ice.
OC Transpo had planned to run four trains, two in each direction, over the troubled section of track near Lees Station in a “stress test” before returning to full line service, which resumed at around 8:30 p.m.
At a supper hour media briefing Tuesday, the city’s transit general manager Renée Amilcar thanked riders for their patience.
“I know that your commute has been longer and difficult,” Amilcar said. “These last few days have been a cold start to the new year. We will all learn from this experience and improve service.”
Trains ran on five-minute intervals on either side of the blockage Tuesday, from Tunney’s Pasture to uOttawa station in the west and from Blair to Tremblay stations in the east. R1 bus service continued in the east from Blair to Rideau, but was tapering off as train service resumed.
An investigation is already underway to find the root cause of the breakdown and OC Transpo will provide an update on its finding when the work is complete, Amilcar said. She also thanked OC Transpo workers who “worked tirelessly for our customers” the past six days.
The LRT woes began late Wednesday during the freezing rain storm when a train stopped near Lees Station because of a build-up of ice on the overhead line. A short time later, a second train coming from the opposite direction also stopped.
Stranded passengers on the trains waited for an hour before they were finally allowed to disembark to be led down the tracks to safety. On Friday, a train equipped with a heavy-duty attachment known as a winter carbon strip was sent to try to clear ice from the OCS, but the wire snapped under the stress, stranding a third train.
The only alternative was to send maintenance workers aloft in a bucket truck to manually smash the ice off the line. On Saturday, a rescue train was sent to tow the stopped trains, but it also snapped the OCS and became the fourth train stranded on the tracks between Lees and Tremblay stations.
Two of the stopped trains were removed over the weekend and repairs were made to Track 1. But that track couldn’t be used while crews were still working to remove the trains and repair damage on Track 2.
The last of the stopped trains was moved to the Belfast Road maintenance yard around 6 p.m. Tuesday, said Mario Guerra, CEO and acting general manager of Rideau Transit Maintenance. None of the four stranded trains suffered any major damage and they will be put back in service shortly after an inspection, he said.
Investigators are still trying to figure out why the ice build-up was so much worse on the section between Tremblay and Lees station. The heavy-duty winter carbon strips normally used to clear ice from the overhead power lines couldn’t keep up with the ice, which got even worse because of the stopped trains.
Among the long-term solutions to be looked at are heating the power line to prevent ice buildup or using de-icing fluids like those used on planes
In the short term, OC Transpo will run trains more frequently during icy weather events so the ice has less time to build up, Guerra said.
It may also experiment with running scrapers along the wire mounted on a non-electric vehicle to reduce the risk of electrical currents arcing, as seen in a video of one of the trains that was widely shared on Twitter last week.
The six-day stoppage is the longest interruption in Confederation Line Service since a derailment in the fall of 2021 caused a 54-day shutdown.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/oc-transpo-expects-full-lrt-service-to-resume-tuesday
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