LRT expected to return to service Monday with 8 single-car trains, a fraction of its fleet

Ottawa's light rail transit system is expected to return to service Monday with just eight single-car trains, a fraction of its total 45-car fleet, OC Transpo says.

In a memo to mayor and councillors Wednesday afternoon, Renée Amilcar, the city's general manager of transit services, said the reduced fleet size will be enough to meet current customer demand. The LRT system normally operates with two-vehicle trains.

The eight single-car trains will run approximately every seven to eight minutes, the memo said.

The current number of R1 replacement buses will continue to operate in parallel to the LRT, Amilcar added, and the city's transit operations control centre will be closely monitoring passenger volumes at stations.

"With eight single trains and the R1 service, this will be a very, very good service," Amilcar said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference. The full news conference is available in the player above.

The eight-car arrangement and parallel R1 service is expected to last weeks with no set end date, she added. This arrangement will continue to affect service on other bus routes across the city.

"Once we can be assured that there is a sustainable number of vehicles for daily operation, we will assess the possibility of increasing the number of trains in service," Amilcar said.

The train's maker and the consortium that built the system provided a draft safety notice to OC Transpo Wednesday, the memo said. That notice recommended that leading and trailing wheel hub assemblies and axles on the trains be replaced every 60,000 kilometres.

RTG is replacing axles across the entire fleet and hopes to have the axles on ten cars replaced by Sunday, said Enrique Martinez Asensio, general manager of Rideau Transit Maintenance (RTG).

The new threshold means axles will need to be replaced every six months moving forward, Amilcar said.

Investigation ongoing

At a media briefing Tuesday, the agency said the inspection of its LRT fleet was complete and six vehicles had been identified as needing further inspection.

As a result, those trains are being inspected further out of "an abundance of caution," said Amilcar said at the Tuesday afternoon news conference.

"We don't want to take any chance with those six vehicles," Amilcar said. "It's normal, but because we are conducting this huge investigation, it's time to have a deep dive on everything, and we don't want to take any risk."

LRT service has been shut down since last Monday due to bearing issues in the axle hub assemblies of its trains.

The train's maker, Alstom, and RTG, the consortium that built the Confederation Line, are redesigning the wheel hub assembly as part of a permanent solution, though the root cause of the issues still hasn't been identified.

At a news conference earlier this week, OC Transpo said it was planning a gradual return to service starting Monday July 31, which would mark two weeks since the LRT was operating.