Does Ottawa’s Light Rail Simply Not Work?
Harsh reality is coming to Ottawa’s troubled light-rail project.
Maybe this dog don’t hunt. Maybe, just maybe, the train doesn’t work.
We learned this week at city transit committee that about four years after the Hurdman station derailment, the city and its light-rail partners have not found the root cause of the burned-out wheel bearings and prematurely wearing axels that caused the crash.
So you just fix the bearings and the axles, right? Well we have … about 700 times in four years. And the problem with the bearings and axles is that they meet industry standards. So something unusual is putting unnecessary loads on the bearings. What that is, after four years, no one knows.
One city staffer at the meeting suggested that load caused by people on the train could be causing the unusual stress. So there’s the solution … run the trains with no passengers. Ridiculously reliable. Case closed. Solution found. Yet another service from your friendly neighbourhood Bulldog. We’re here to help.
Unusual loads on the wheel bearings and axles. That’s where we’re at today in the train fix. We don’t know what causes them.
Unfortunately, that was the conclusion of the Transportation Safety Board investigation four years ago. It discovered the wheel bearings were the problem and their premature wear and catastrophic damage were the result of some kind of load or a combination of loads that the board could not pin-point.
And that the board could not determine the cause of the loads is telling. The TSB investigates plane crash where debris is spread over hundreds of metres, pieces the plane back together and then finds the cause of the crash. However, it wasn’t able to successfully find the source or sources of the loads that are destroying the bearings and axles on the train. That as expert an organization as the TSB can’t find the root cause of the derailment is not a good sign.
The city said Monday it will be employing sensors to discover the load problems on the axles and bearings. Isn’t that the kind of thing you do a few weeks after the crash, not four years later? No the city has been comfortable throwing axles and bearings at the train rather than finding out what is causing them to wear out so quickly.
Not only might the train not work properly but perhaps the expertise and diligence of the parties to the train are not up to the task.
Ottawans should prepare themselves for a shock. It might well be this train doesn’t work, that the loads and factors causing those loads that stress the axles and bearings might be too complicated to discover. Four years is a long time not to have a fix. Too long, in fact.
If the trains can’t be repaired, we might just have a fleet of lemons that can’t be made to work. And the decisions after that are very difficult.
Does Ottawa buy new and conventional rolling stock to replace the current model? Is light rail the wrong solution for Ottawa’s dedicated line? Normally light rail doesn’t have a dedicated line and mixes with traffic and pedestrians. Rather like a glorified trolly. Should we go to diesel given Ottawa’s tricky weather? Should we close the line down and declare it unworkable and return to the Transitway? Or have we begun to enter the post-transit era what with work from home and technical alternatives that are quickly being created? Did we build LRT too late?
These decisions dwarf the options considered on light rail so far. If you think what has happened so far with this disaster has been difficult, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Ken Gray
For You:
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No Root Cause Of O-Train Woes After Four Years
Leiper Drops Support For Sprung Structures
LRT Completion Dates Missing From Report
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try . . . . again. If success still can’t be attained, blame the gremlins.
I don’t know anything. Anything at all about this problem or the situation. Not a thing. But I do know that trains have trouble with curves – and curves need a very wide arc. Or, if a curve or mechanical adjustment is not the solution then – I think – the evident one is a switch to a parallel track that bypasses the peak of the curve. Like I said – I don’t know anything – but did they look at that?
What should have happened three and a half years ago is the train should have been shut down and they should have stopped building extensions to it until they found the problem. To continue operating what they knew to be a defective train was idiocy. To add to that idiocy by continuing to build more of the same infrastructure that contained the problem was complete lunacy.
How much money was spent on repairs, etc. to a faulty system in that time frame? How much was spent on building more of a system that contained an unidentified fault? Had those funds been pulled from the Confederation Line and invested in the Trillium Line, we might have been able to finish the Trillium expansion on time and have at least one fully-functioning rail line that could be relied on to provide usable service to Ottawa transit users.
Instead, the wise leaders at OC Transpo and the City chose to go on throwing good money after bad on a system that never has worked properly and, potentially, never will. Looking back over the years, I see that I and many others recommended time and time again that they needed to call a halt to continually pushing the concept that the LRT would somehow rise from the ashes and overcome all its difficulties to operate as it had been intended to.
Time to cut your losses and move on. Sometimes a dead horse is just that and no amount of whipping will turn it into a steed that will carry you off into the sunset.
Question: Could the lemon trains be converted for use as temporary housing for the homeless? There has to be something they’re good for! Yes, they’d be better used as trains but if that’s not in the cards, let’s repurpose them.
Day excursions to see the highlights of Orleans.