Article content material

Ottawa commuters face a sixth day of transit chaos Tuesday as OC Transpo continued to offer partial service on the Confederation Line and struggled to clear and restore a central part of monitor that has been partially or totally blocked since Wednesday evening’s ice storm.

Article content material

In a day replace to metropolis council and the media, OC Transpo Common Supervisor Renée Amilcar mentioned Tuesday morning’s service would be the identical as Monday, with five-minute service with 4 trains every on a western part between Tunney’s Pasture and uOttawa stations and an japanese part between Blair and Tremblay stations, R1 buses are nonetheless wanted to bridge the hole in service. The buses will run all the way in which from Blair to the Rideau Centre and at intervals of between 5 and quarter-hour.

Article content material

One monitor between Lees and Tremblay has now been cleared and upkeep crews anticipate to take away two stopped trains on the opposite monitor Tuesday morning, Amilcar’s memo mentioned. Crews are additionally working to restore a brief part of the overhead energy strains which were broken and can then overview and examine the complete system earlier than resuming full service.

Article content material

Amilcar didn’t say when the Confederation Line will likely be utterly again in service.

In the meantime, riders complained of overcrowded buses and lengthy delays Monday, which was the primary day again for a lot of college students within the area.

Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper was one in all a number of metropolis councillors to make use of OC Transpo to get to work Monday, boarding a bus in Orléans for the trip to metropolis corridor. The roughly 20 km journey took slightly below two hours, Leiper reported as he live-tweeted his commute.

Article content material

Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr left her house close to Randall Avenue at 7:30 a.m. and reported arriving at metropolis corridor at 9:18 a.m. after her bus and prepare journey. She famous solely takes 75 minutes to stroll to metropolis corridor from her home. 

Article content material

Riders complained that most of the R1 buses have been packed and driving by way of stops with out stopping. OC Transpo mentioned it was doing its greatest so as to add extra buses.

Article content material

The transit system’s woes started Wednesday evening when a freezing rain storm — a reasonably gentle one on that — stopped a prepare simply earlier than midnight close to Lees Station due to a construct up of ice on the overhead catenary system (OCS) that provides energy to the trains. Quickly after that, a second prepare on the other monitor additionally stopped, utterly blocking the Confederation Line in each instructions.

With no trains passing by way of the world, ice continued to construct up on the OCS. On Friday, upkeep crews despatched a 3rd prepare with a particular attachment that was purported to clear the ice from the overhead line. That solely made issues worse. Not solely did it not clear the ice, it additionally pulled down a piece of the ability line.

Crews then needed to manually smash the ice off the road from bucket vans. On Saturday, a fourth prepare was despatched to attempt to tow the disabled trains but it surely too broke the OCS and have become caught. By Sunday, one of many the tracks was cleared, however crews have been nonetheless working to clear the remaining stopped prepare and restore and check the ability strains.

Article content material

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

“The freezing rain storm was nothing out of the abnormal. This was not a repeat of the ice storm. We had a number of millimetres of freezing rain and and slipped and slid for a day, then every thing else went again to regular. However our transit system continues to be down,” mentioned Shantz, who opted to bike to work on Monday as an alternative of taking transit.

However Shantz did commend OC Transpo for retaining riders higher knowledgeable about what was taking place

“Credit score the place it’s due. They’ve been doing a much better job than throughout earlier outages.”

Nonetheless, Shantz thinks the town can do higher and will have a greater plan in place for breakdowns. Toronto runs buses parallel to its subway strains always, whereas OC Transpo solely begins up its parallel R1 bus service if there’s a breakdown on the Confederation line.

Article content material

“One of many large issues now we have now’s that lots of our group buses get pulled to run that R1 service. So many individuals by no means deliberate to take the prepare however they could discover that the bus that they want has been cancelled.”

She additionally worries about what plans are in place to assist transit riders who use a wheelchair or mobility machine in the event that they’re trapped on a prepare as occurred to about 40 passengers stranded throughout final week’s stoppage. These passengers sat on the prepare for for an hour earlier than being led to security alongside the tracks. That might be unimaginable for somebody in a wheelchair, she mentioned.

Talking on CFRA Monday morning, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe mentioned the town’s precedence is to get the trains transferring once more earlier than taking a look at find out how to forestall such outages sooner or later.

Article content material

“This occasion is extremely irritating and disappointing and a sympathize with all of the passengers and residents of Ottawa who’re discovering it actually aggravating with having to cope with this once more. I’m simply as annoyed as everybody else,” Sutcliffe mentioned.

The Confederation Line isn’t the one LRT that struggles throughout freezing rain storms. Freezing rain triggered Kitchener-Waterloo’s ION service to close down in December and in March of final yr when a construct up of ice on its overhead energy line broke {the electrical} contact between the trains and their energy supply. In every case, service resumed after only a few hours. The ION entered service in June 2019, a number of months earlier than Ottawa’s Confederation Line.

What’s sophisticated the state of affairs in Ottawa is the harm to the OCS. OC Transpo’s Alstom trains can’t transfer with out electrical energy and presently the one solution to tow them is to make use of one other prepare, which itself wants electrical energy to maneuver. At a media briefing Friday, Rideau Upkeep Group acknowledged that it wants a greater solution to transfer a stopped prepare off the tracks.

Article content material

OC Transpo had tried utilizing a particular machine known as a winter carbon strip, a heavy responsibility attachment to the prepare’s pantograph designed to scrape the ice from the road and enhance {the electrical} contact. The strips may even be outfitted with a heating factor to soften the ice.

Elsewhere, researchers have efficiently experimented with coating the OCS with varied alcohol options like these used to deice plane.

Trains on the Trillium Line that run south from Bayview Station are powered by diesel, not electrical energy, so wouldn’t be affected by freezing rain in the identical means. The Trillium Line is scheduled to renew service alongside an expanded route subsequent fall.