OTTAWA, Ontario — Return of Ottawa’s light-rail Confederation Line has been pushed back at least 10 days to allow for additional track work, city officials were informed on Friday.
Aug. 10 is now the earliest the system could resume operation.
CTV News reports Renée Amicar, the city’s general manager of transit services, told the city council Friday that additional work would be required to ensure train wheels do not contact restraining rails at 16 locations on the 12.5-kilometer (7.8-mile) line.
As a result, the system will not meet all of the three conditions she had set for the resumption of service on Monday, July 31 [see “Ottawa light rail line to remain shuttered …,” Trains News Wire, July 25, 2023]. Specifically, it will not meet the requirement for revised safety notes on operation, she said.
The Confederation Line was shut down suddenly the afternoon of July 17 after an issue with an axle bearing was discovered on one of the system’s Alstom Citadis Sprint light rail cars. A long-term solution to the axle and bearing issue, involving redesign of the axle, is expected to take at least a year.
Is this the final/exact date? We’ll wait and see.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün