Maintenance on LRT will close parts of line early every night in mid-August

Planned maintenance on Ottawa's LRT line later this month will cause parts of the line to shut down early in the evenings.

OC Transpo general manager Renée Amilcar said in a memo Tuesday that the work would begin Aug. 12 and continue until Aug. 25.

"During the two-week maintenance period, certain sections of O-Train Line 1 will close as early as 8 p.m. Work will occur at intervals along the system and non-work areas will remain open for customers," Amilcar wrote.

The work will include rail grinding and profiling and other proactive maintenance such as switch heater calibration ahead of the winter and rail repairs and replacements. The work was originally scheduled to take place in June but was postponed because of a shipping delay.

R1 bus service will be available on nights when the Confederation Line is closed early. Rail service will resume at the usual times each morning: 5 a.m. on weekdays, 6 a.m. on Saturdays, and 8 a.m. on Sundays.

Amilcar said more information would be provided later this week when the maintenance schedule is finalized.

"This work is being conducted during summer months in evenings and at night, when ridership is lower, to minimize customer impacts as much as possible," the memo said.

Speaking on CTV Morning Live, transit commission chair Coun. Allan Hubley said the rail grinding would help make parts of the ride smoother for customers.

This maintenance comes shortly after part of the line was damaged by a lightning strike, requiring the replacement of nearly a kilometre of overhead wires and other repairs. Part of the system was offline for about five days.

Twenty train cars were also removed from service last month for inspections following an axle hub failure on one of the trains. Hubley said that 11 double-car trains and a spare train were available as of 6 a.m. Tuesday and he expects more cars will clear inspections each day. Rideau Transit Maintenance previously estimated they could inspect and replace the axle hubs on roughly two train cars per day.

The root cause of the axle hub failure has yet to be determined, but RTM CEO Mario Guerra told reporters last week that he suspected component fatigue may have been a factor.