Light Rail: Give Us News, Not Beans
This is not news.
If something has changed in the service from OC Transpo, tell us. But this city press release (far below) is news as in canning beans. This release at the bottom of this post says nothing.
It’s like this:
“We here at Billy’s Beans continue to run our assembly line to produce beans. And we are producing beans. We produced beans yesterday, we’re producing beans today, and we expect to produce beans tomorrow. Our assembly lines continue to produce beans and everything is running splendidly. We are proud of the way we are open, caring and inclusive about the news from our bean-canning factory. In fact, we don’t even have to think to manufacture these press releases. Our communications department here at Billy’s simply copies and pastes the press release from the day before. Furthermore, we’ve fired our communications department and replaced it with a squirrel. The squirrel presses Control C on its computer followed by pressing Control V on a new page. Then our bright chipper rodent presses print. And it works for peanuts. Its morale is incessantly high. Who needs artificial intelligence when we can cross-purpose squirrels? Thank you.”
Billy’s Beans Happy Town News
The public doesn’t care about the buses running fine which is what this release and other releases tell us incessantly. These folks want to know when buses aren’t running fine. We expect the buses to run fine. Your agent gets a kick out city types saying the Confederation Line ran successfully for seven weeks. Please note: it is designed, theoretically to be sure, to run every day. Our standard for this service is that ran well for weeks. If my car ran successfully for weeks, then broke down again and again, I’d say it was a lemon.
“Our O-Train ran successfully for three weeks consecutively but broke down for four. That is much better the two weeks of flawless transportation previous to the breakdown that preceded this breakdown and subsequent normal derailment. We expect it to run for some time after this current breakdown until it fails again. The weather forecast is calling for humidity so we’re not sure our cutting-edge technology will be able to stand that. Or that the train might have to carry people the weight of which tends to score the bearings and axles. We will be sorry for the inconvenience but we will not be refunding parts of your automatic payments because you were expecting to ride a train rather than a crowded stinking bus in August that runs on sweat rather than petroleum. Thank you for your patience. In the meantime we will try to cross-purpose squirrels from our communications department to power the train using a cutting-edge gerbil-wheel technology. Another cost saving from your City of Ottawa. And for all this our politicians and our communications department expect praise because we’re being open, caring and inclusive. Thank you.”
Happy Town News
There is a point to all this gerbil-ish. If you’re about to write a press release, think for a moment. Does this have news in it? No? Then don’t write it. Post-pandemic there is a global shortage of pixels and we can’t afford in these environmentally stressed times to waste them on no-news. Just ask Jeff Leiper. Stop the madness.
Heat, Humidity Felled The Train: WHOPPER WATCH
Actually the greatest human shortage is time.
What the public should want to know is exactly is how this redesign of the train’s hubs will cure breakdowns after 18 months. Leiper has suggested a wicker-and-hemp configuration and we taxpayers want to know if this will be efficacious. The councillor also suggests intensifying the hubs and sprockets and axles and wheels so they will be more environmentally friendly. We’d like a response on that from the expert technicians at Alstom in Paris.
The big question now is not if the trains are running now but will they run 18 months from now when the redesign is supposedly complete … or late and not working? Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says this time is different from the other repairs. Those are words. That’s nice. What about facts? Why will it be different and how will that work? And will we still be in this mess 18 months from now when the hemp doesn’t hold.
There is no news in the train working except that some pea-brained public-relations mercenary can point to this and say how open, caring and inclusive our municipal government is. Yes, look at all the press releases telling us nothing.
Give us information, real information … not beans.
And now the denouement. The O-Train stands for Old-Train as in old technology. We’ve been doing this for a while. As in when we stuffed wood and coal and water into an engine and chugged it across the country. The Canadian Pacific Railway took four years to build. We are now near the four-year anniversary of the O-Train not working. The CPR was 20,000 kilometres long. The O-Train 12.5 kilometres. And steam-engine builders probably had some technical problems along the way. Maybe we should have used steam instead of electricity.
Ironically, the No-Train, if and when it runs, uses the same trench through the old west end that the CPR did. Hmm.
Ottawa Light Rail Is Senseless: PATTON
The No-Train can’t tunnel successfully under the Rideau Canal. Its engineers didn’t know there was sand and a hill in Sandy Hill. That’s not good. The CPR blasted through mountains, built huge bridges, traversed swamps and lakes and rivers.
There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run … and in Ottawa, that is now.
Ken Gray
This is a release from the City of Ottawa;
Sent on behalf of Renée Amilcar, General Manager, Transit Services Department
Good morning, Mayor and Members of Council,
I am writing to provide a brief update on the R1 service levels customers can expect today.
R1 Service
R1 service began this morning at 6am from Blair to Tunney’s Pasture station, with shuttles operating to Lees and Cyrville stations.
R1 Express continues to operate on weekdays from 6:30 to 8:30am from Blair to downtown and from 3 to 6pm from downtown to Blair. R1 Express will not run on Monday, August 7 due to the Colonel By Day holiday.
R1 Para services provides additional transit options for Para Transpo customers and customers who may require accessible service between Tunney’s Pasture and Blair stations. Customers can book this service the same day, speak to OC Transpo staff at stations to request the service, or can call 613-560-5000 for additional supports.
OC Transpo will continue to monitor and adjust the service, where possible.
Line 1 stations remain closed, and our staff are at major transit stations providing support to customers. Social media updates continue to be shared and customers are encouraged to check OCTranspo.com for the latest information regarding their trip.
Work on all areas of the resumption of service continues throughout the weekend.
We will continue to provide daily updates by email, and we will provide advanced notice of the next media availability.
Thank you,
Renée Amilcar
General Manager, Transit Services Department
City of Ottawa
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Now the weather forecast for Ottawa and environs. Dark starting about 0830 PM getting light sometime around 5 AM. Potential for wet during the same time span but not too wet. dry later with some intervals of moisture or not.
The preceding forecast was written by the squirrel who pens happy Town “News”, giving you the information you do not need.
There’s a little nugget of information in her screed that will give you some help in identifying some of the costs of all of this. She says that work will continue through the weekend which means that some lucky staffers will get a nice contribution towards their fall budgets. The weekend itself will no doubt bring a shift premium and Monday will in all likelihood be at least double time if not double time-and-a-half. Cha-ching!
There would have been a regular crew booked to work the weekend but, if there is remedial work being done, it’s probable that extra hands have been brought in. Cha-ching!
Are the repairers getting time away from the grind because I don’t want tired people working on this job. A bad enough result has already come out of the previous ministrations of RTG/Alstom/OC Transpo. Let’s try and improve the chances of success, shall we?
Ken. The insertion of Gordon Lightfoot’s song got me wondering and Googling as I listened to the music and words. I discovered that “The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was founded in 1881. Its primary purpose was to construct a transcontinental railway which it completed in 1885. For the first time in Canadian history, Canadians and Canadian goods could travel from east to west in a short period of time. The song was commissioned by the CBC in 1967 to mark Canada’s centennial; the lyrics celebrating the “vision” and incredible effort that went into building the Canadian Pacific Railroad”. Comparing the events that took place during the 4 years it took to build the transcontinental railway to what has transpired in the last 4 years in the LRT project is truly mind-boggling. And, the people who completed the transcontinental railway did so without computers at their disposal, nor Microsoft Project, nor any other high tech tools. And those of us who live in the 21st century think we’re smarter than our counterparts from previous generations, eh! By the way, it was nice to hear the song again. Thanks.