couple interesting tidbits here - new axle design coming with RTG eating the costs, defective axle hub got shipped to france
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...s-week-several-tests-of-system-conducted
LRT shutdown to continue through this week, permanent fixes will take over a year
Joanne Laucius
Published Jul 24, 2023
The city’s LRT Confederation Line is expected to be out of service through at least this week, and it will take at least a year for the system’s problem-plagued light rail vehicle wheel hub assemblies to be replaced.
LRT shutdown to continue through this week, permanent fixes will take over a year
The system will gradually resume service at the start of next week as long as three conditions are met, Renée Amilcar, the city’s general manager of transit services, said Monday.
First, all of the axle bearings in the city’s light rail vehicle fleet have to be inspected. That had been completed on 44 vehicles as of Monday morning. Six need further investigation with “an abundance of caution,” Amilcar said.
Second, Amilcar said she needs the results of an analysis of the wheel hub, which is being conducted by Alstom, the manufacturer of Ottawa’s specially designed Citadis Spirit trains. That is expected on July 28.
Amilcar also needs revised safety notes from Alstom and Rideau Transportation Group (RTG). “That note is in progress and I expect it by the end of this week,” she said.
Confederation Line trains were pulled from service late in the afternoon of July 17 after a routine maintenance inspection found excess grease on a train axle.
The grease was noticed during a 50,000-kilometre check, which includes a visual inspection of the underbody of the vehicle, triggering a raft of tests on the rails and the entire fleet of train cars.
There will be a permanent solution to the issue — but it will take time. There has been a firm commitment from Alstom and RTG to redesign the axles to permanently fix the problem, said Amilcar.
The city has been working with Alstom on a preliminary design, which has demonstrated that the axle can be strengthened, she said. A detailed design and prototype should be ready in the next 12 months, but it will need extensive testing.
The cost of the new axles will be absorbed by Rideau Transit Group (RTG), the consortium that built the Confederation Line and was awarded a 30-year contract to maintain it.
The axle design has been at the centre of many of the problems the system has experienced and a permanent fix is the most important thing, said Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe.
“It’s going to take some time, unfortunately, but that’s the nature of the work,” he said. “I believe that one day we will have safe, reliable light rail service for the people of Ottawa.”
Serving 13 stations, the $2.1-billion Confederation Line has had a series of breakdowns since its launch four years ago.
Trains were pulled from service to be checked last July after an LRT operator reported an “unusual vibration,” one of three cases of cartridge assembly failures probed by the Transportation Safety Board, the independent federal agency that investigates accidents and makes safety recommendations.
The LRT operator’s warning averted a possible derailment on the Confederation Line due to an axle hub that was on the verge of “catastrophic failure,” the TSB said in an advisory letter to the city, released in February. Parts on Ottawa’s trains have been wearing out early and “well below industry standards for cartridge assemblies.”
The TSB said the July 2022 incident, along with an Aug. 8, 2021, derailment near Tunney’s Pasture Station and a Sept. 19, 2021, derailment near Tremblay Station, involved failures of the cartridge assembly connecting the train’s wheels and axle to the drive train.
Ottawa’s interim city manager Wendy Stephanson said Monday collaboration between the city, RTG and Alstom has “improved significantly” and there is a “collective appreciation” for the urgency in addressing and resolving the situation and preventing future service disruption. Challenges in this relationship were raised as a primary concern in a public inquiry into the system, she noted.
The city filed a $131-million lawsuit against RTG in May 2021, claiming the consortium failed to meet certain terms of the deal to build the Confederation Line, including missing two key completion dates in 2018. The Confederation Line was handed over to the city in August 2019. In January, city council voted to negotiate a settlement.
Richard Holder, the city’s director of engineering services, said testing is underway on five elements of the system, including a walk-through of the entire line, which has not identified any problems.
Another test using digital instrumentation is underway, and the data is being analyzed. RTG is adjusting the “restraining rail,” a passive safety device that only becomes active if there is a risk of derailment. That work is to be concluded by July 30, said Holder.
The axle hub on the affected LRT vehicle has been sent to France, where it will be dismantled and inspected for signs of abnormal wear, said Holder. The results of this analysis should be completed by Friday. The grease from the hub has also been sent for analysis.
Meanwhile, data is being gathered on a test light rail vehicle to conduct loading tests during the hottest part of the day, and with varying loads, to see how the weight of passengers might affect equipment. “Preliminary indications are that a range of loads tested would not have caused an instantaneous failure. But repetitive loading cycles may have contributed to degraded reliability,” said Holder.
After the line was put out of service last week, transit users have been frustrated by the delays and inconvenience of R1 replacement bus service. But Amilcar did not speculate Monday on whether users could expect a refund or a discount for their fares.
“My focus is really to bring back the service. And we need a reliable service,” she said. “So we can probably talk about that later.”
Confidence in the LRT system is an issue, Mayor Sutcliffe acknowledged, but he doesn’t expect transit users to have confidence just because service is resuming in the next few days.
“Lasting trust and confidence will come only when the chronic and persistent conditions we have experienced have been permanently addressed,” he said. “I’m hopeful that is the beginning of a new period during which the recommendations of the inquiry are being closely followed.”
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