Stuck railway switch on Montreal's new REM to blame for morning — and evening — delays on 1st official day
Service resumed shortly after 9 a.m., after being stopped for about 1 hour
The Réseau express métropolitain, Montreal's newest mass-transit system, ground to a halt in both directions during its first rush-hour commute on Monday — twice — forcing passengers to get off the trains and triggering the service's emergency backup plan.
Shortly after 9 a.m., service resumed in both directions.
The southern branch of the REM, which links Brossard on the South Shore to downtown Montreal, was inaugurated on Friday. Tens of thousands of Montrealers tested out the new trains on Saturday and Sunday, when the rides were free.
But on Monday, just before 8 a.m., the driverless trains stopped running, and a message relayed to commuters on loudspeakers said the delay was due to a "technical problem."
Several trains at a standstill could be seen on the tracks near the Champlain Bridge.
Riders were told the delay would last approximately 20 minutes.
Service began gradually resuming after 15 minutes, but the kinks were not fully ironed out and passengers in some trains were forced to disembark.
Jean-Vincent Lacroix, a spokesperson for CDPQ Infra, which developed the REM and is a subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, said the issue was caused by a railway switch that got stuck, preventing trains from changing tracks.
The REM shut down for a second time Monday night due to a similar issue. At 11 p.m., service halted for approximately an hour. Users were directed to shuttle buses.
Technical teams are investigating the issue, a REM spokesperson said.
On Monday morning, Lacroix says service was shut down between the Gare Centrale station in downtown Montreal and the Panama station between about 8 and 8:30 a.m. During that time, buses from the branch's southern terminus, the Brossard station, kept running, bringing riders to Panama where they had to get off and wait for shuttle buses to head into Montreal.
Between 8:30 and about 9:15 a.m., however, the entire REM branch was shut down.
"We were ready, so we worked closely with the CDPQ," said Maxime Laliberté, who is is responsible for public affairs at the Réseau de transport de Longueuil (RTL).
"So we launched 20 buses to go to all the stations … going to downtown Montreal back and forth to transport everyone who was on the REM," he said.
'Adjustments to be made'
When the service shut down, one of the top priorities was making sure trains that were stranded could get to the nearest station.
Lacroix said trains near the Champlain Bridge made it to the closest station in Montreal: Îles-des-Soeurs.
He described the REM's first rush-hour run as a "big test."
"Everywhere around the world, when you put in a new service of this magnitude like that, there's always some adjustments to be made," the spokesperson said.
"The only thing we can say to the people is that we're working hard. We're going to make sure to limit that kind of situation."
Lacroix stressed that the REM system ran smoothly on Saturday and Sunday.
Meredith Alousi-Jones, a research assistant at Transportation Research at McGill (TRAM), says the popularity of the weekend may have contributed to this morning's issues.
"They were prepared for excitement and for a lot of people, but in terms of the infrastructure and the service, it's not the usual pattern that they are going to get on a regular service day," she said. "So it might not be as much of an issue with the days going forward."
'I just wanted to get home'
Mahan Mansoor arrived at the Gare Centrale station Monday morning hoping to ride the REM home to Brossard, but shortly after he boarded, he was told to get off and wait to be shuttled by bus to Panama station.
"Somebody came in and told us that there were a lot of technical problems," he said. "It was a bit confusing; I just wanted to get home."
Charlotte Leger, a commuter from Candiac who took the REM over the weekend while it was free, arrived at the Brossard station Monday morning only to learn that the trains were running late.
But she took the news with philosophical calm.
"It can happen," she said. "We knew that something could happen. They always say that everything will be alright but you never know."
Before the REM, Leger said she took the bus into the city and it usually took about an hour. With the REM operating, and running smoothly, she estimated that it would take her about the same amount of time.
But the buses, she said, rarely had technical problems. She hoped the REM's shutdown on Monday wouldn't become a frequent occurrence.
"We hope it will work," she said.
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With files from Radio-Canada, Jennifer Yoon, Rowan Kennedy and Sarah Leavitt