An engineering professor says that putting safety first with a full shutdown was the right choice
Experts who have been watching the Ottawa light rail line’s “bearing boondoggle” say that OC Transpo did the right thing when it shut down service this week after finding technical problems with another train. However, many people think it will be hard to get people to trust a system that keeps breaking down.
Patrick Dumond, an engineering professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the monitoring and diagnosis of bearing faults, said, “They’re not messing around with safety any more.”
“They saw a problem, shut it down, and said, ‘Look, we know it stinks, we know it’s going to cost money, and we know it’s going to mess up a lot of people’s daily commutes, but safety is more important than anything else.'”
As Dumond kept up with OC Transpo’s messages about the problem, he could only come to the conclusion that the people in charge still don’t know what’s wrong with the train bearings.
He said, “They still don’t know what the real problems are.”
On Tuesday, Renée Amilcar, the city’s general manager of transit services, said she was sure the city was “very close” to finding the root cause.
History repeating itsel
OC Transpo said that the LRT was shut down because a routine inspection found more grease than expected.
Dumond says that a later investigation found problems with “bearing play,” which basically means that the bearing was loose.
He said that the looseness could be caused by problems with maintenance or with the tracks.
Extreme temperatures in Ottawa, which have ranged from -33 C to 35 C just this year, could also play a role by breaking down seals and letting contaminants into the wheel assembly.
In the end, he said he needed more information to figure out what was wrong.
“This could be going wrong for so many different reasons,” he said.
The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada also found that a derailment in 2021 was caused by problems with the bearings.
Diane Deans, who used to be on the city council and lead the transit commission, says that history seems to be repeating itself, which is both scary and annoying.
She said, “We know that there are some major problems with the train.”
“And we’ll keep making the same mistakes until we fully understand and deal with them. We’ll keep running into the same problems over and over again.”
“It’s all about how reliable the system is.
Deans said that many of the current council members ran for office last year on the promise that they would fix the LRT. Now, they need a clearer plan for how to do this, Deans said.
“Everything depends on how safe and reliable the system is,” she said.”Repeating the same things over and over does not build trust with the public.”
Stephen Blais, an MPP for Orléans and another former chair of the transit commission, said that the public is frustrated not only by delays and shutdowns, but also by the lack of information about what’s wrong with the system.
He said, “I would definitely tell them to lay everything out on the table as soon as possible so that people can have faith that the people in charge know what the problem is and how to fix it.”
Sam Berrada is the city’s independent light rail regulatory monitor and compliance officer. He makes sure that OC Transpo and contractors follow safety rules.He said that a lot of people have been following the rules.
He said that the current problem was “very complicated and technical,” and he agreed that OC Transpo was smart to shut down the trains as a precaution.
“It’s better to do this out of an abundance of caution than to take risks and have to deal with the possible consequences,” he said.
“It’s clear that everyone wants this problem to be fixed as soon as possible,” he said.”From what I can tell, the city has been working very hard with the contractor and their subcontractor in this case,” said the man.
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said that the problem was found before a disaster because people tried to follow recommendations and do more inspections.
He said that he was sad and that the problem wouldn’t be fixed right away. But he thinks the city is going in the right direction.
Sutcliffe said, “We have to keep figuring out what’s wrong with the service.”
“We have to keep doing that over and over again until all the problems have been found and fixed. Only then will the people of Ottawa get the safe, reliable service they paid for.”
Union calls LRT ‘a complete disaster
Deans said it’s clear all over again that the city took short-cuts with the LRT.
The head of the union that represents OC Transpo employees seems to agree.
Clint Crabtree, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279, said, “The train has been a disaster up to this point.””It’s just one thing after another.”
He said that the LRT has been “consistently underperforming,” which he put down to what he thinks is a lack of staff at Alstom, which made the trains and keeps them running as part of the Rideau Transit Group.
Like Deans, he worries that the number of riders will keep going down because people won’t trust a system that keeps breaking down.
He said that the sudden shutdown and switch to R1 bus service puts a lot of stress on the system and the people who work on it.
“My members are doing what the LRT can’t do, and they’re still giving the service back to the public through buses,” he said.
Since every train’s axle is still being checked, Crabtree said it could be weeks before the system is ready to run again. Dumond said that it could take much longer to find a long-term solution that is reliable.
He said, “I think it depends on whether we decide on a Band-Aid solution or a real, engineered solution that solves the problem.” “The second option will take a lot longer, but it will last a lot longer.”