OC Transpo, Rideau Transit Group begin work to reposition restraining rails on O-Train line

Rideau Transit Group has begun work to reposition restraining rails at eight locations along Ottawa's light-rail transit system, as OC Transpo "is confident" LRT service will resume on Aug. 14.

"We are making positive progress towards restoring rail service," Transit Services general manager Renee Amilcar told reporters Thursday afternoon.

OC Transpo has received a draft risk assessment from Atkins Global on repositioning the restraining rails on the LRT system, the final step required to ensure all the parameters of the Safety Note from RTG and Alstom are implemented before LRT service resumes.

Amilcar says OC Transpo, Rideau Transit Group and Transprotation Resource Associates are working to finalize the risk assessment.

"In the interim, RTG has enough information to begin repositioning some of the restraining rails, and this work began today. The risk assessment is also almost complete," Amilcar told Council in a memo.

Amilcar told reporters that work began Thursday morning to reposition the restraining rails.

"This is a labour-intensive process and it's expected to take up to 10 days to complete. With this work now underway, we can confirm that a gradual return-to-service can be offered on Monday, Aug. 14," Amilcar said.

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The O-Train was originally scheduled to return-to-service last Monday, two weeks after the full system was shut down after an axle-bearing issue was detected on one light-rail transit vehicle during a routine 50,000 km inspection. Last week, Rideau Transit Group and Alstom said the Safety Note to return to service now required repositioning each of the restraining rails to ensure there is no contact with the train wheels.

Restraining rails are added to parts of rail lines, usually curves, to prevent derailments. When a train in motion goes around a curve, the rail is there as a passive safety measure to keep wheels in place; however, the wheels are not meant to be coming into contact with the rail every time the train takes the curve, which is what was happening during testing in recent weeks. This adds more wear and tear to the train.

The rail would only need to be moved a small amount, 1 to 2 millimetres, in order to still serve its safety function without causing degradation to the trains, officials have said.

Amilcar provided an update on the remaining action items to finalize the Safety Note and return to service.  The report from Atkins Global to advise where to reposition the restraining rails and the discussion of the risk assessment are scheduled to be completed on Friday, while work to reposition the restraining rails began Thursday and end on Aug. 13. 

OC Transpo and Rideau Transit Group will conduct trial running on the LRT system as crews repositioning the restraining rails.

"At this time, OC Transpo believes that full Line 1 service will be ready to safely resume on August 14," Amilcar said.

"OC Transpo is closely following this progress and will continue to provide updates on the timing to gradually restart service."

As part of the return-to-service, Rideau Transit Group are replacing the leading and trailing wheel hub assemblies and axles on all trains every 60,000 km. As of Thursday, 18 light-rail vehicles have had their hub assembles replaced.

Amilcar says OC Transpo is preparing a return-to-service plan that may include one or two-car service.

"This work is important to increase the trains available once Line 1 resumes. Our team is proactively preparing a service plan based on the projected number of vehicles that may be available and different scenarios for service resumption."

The return-to-service plan requires the following milestones to be reached:

• Inspection of all LRVs. The inspection of all 44 LRVs was completed on July 24
• Texelis report on the disassembly and analysis of the "out of tolerance hub." The French manufacturer submitted the report on July 28.
• Safety Note from RTG outlining the parameters of the new containment plan for the safe operation of Line 1.

Amilcar says the remaining requirement is the repositioning of the restraining rails.

OC Transpo and RTG are also preparing for the resumption of service, including trial running on the LRT system, new signage at Line 1 stations and decals to identify boarding for single-car locations.

The LRT has been offline since July 17, when OC Transpo made the abrupt decision to stop all train service in the middle of the afternoon after a routine inspection discovered an issue with one of the wheel hub assemblies on one of the trains. The issue has been confirmed to be similar to what caused the derailment in August 2021 and a wheel hub failure in July 2022.

This has since prompted a decision to have Alstom, the company that manufactured the trains running on the line, to completely redesign the LRV's wheel hub assembly. The redesign, construction of a prototype, and testing is expected to take up to 18 months, and it could be another year or more after that before every vehicle is retrofitted.

On Wednesday, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said that while he was frustrated with the latest setback, he believes this work will address the root cause of the issues affecting the LRT.

Where are the restraining rail

OC Transpo and Rideau Transit Group will need to move 16 restraining rails at eight locations before LRT service resumes on Aug. 14.

"It is only the restraining rails on curves less than 150 metre radius that may need to be adjusted," Richard Holder, Director of Engineering Services, said in a statement to CTV News Ottawa.

"OC Transpo is expecting a report from Atkins Global which will outline the dimensional tolerances allowed for the restraining rails prior to start of passenger service. Further information will be providing in the coming days."

Officials have said the rails need to be adjusted one to two millimetres. 

The restraining rails that will need to be repositioned are located at

• Curve 130 east of Rideau Station
• Curve 210 east of Lees Station
• Curve 220 west of Hurdman Station
• Curve 230 east of Hurdman Station
• Curve 240 west of Tremblay Station
• Curve 280 east of Tremblay Station
• Curve 290 west of St Laurent Station
• Curve 300 west of St Laurent Station

Moving the restraining rails

The restraining rails will be moved one to two millimetres at the eight locations along the O-Train line.

OC Transpo and Rideau Transit Group says it will "labour intensive" and take up to 10 days.

"The reality is that we're lifting some really heavy steel....that is bolted to the track," Enrique Martinez Asensio, general manager of Rideau Transit Group, said Thursday.

"That requires a significant amount of workforce, specialized machines and trained people in order to be sure the final configuration of the restraining rail is the right one. It's just a couple of millimetres but we're talking about a lot of work to do that movement."

Who are Atkins Global?

Atkins Global was hired by RTG earlier this week to assess the risk of different scenarios involving work needed on the restraining rails in order to return the LRT to service.

On its website, the company describes itself as "a world-leading design, engineering and project-management consultancy."

It is headquartered in London, U.K., but was acquired by Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin in 2017.

SNC-Lavalin is one of the companies in the RTG consortium, the others being EllisDon and ACS Infrastructure Canada. These three companies, through RTG and its maintenance arm Rideau Transit Maintenance (RTM), designed, built, and now maintain the Confederation Line.

The hiring of Atkins Global raised questions about its relationship with one of the companies that built the line.

Enrique Martínez Asensio, general manager of RTM, told reporters in a news conference on Tuesday that Atkins Global was chosen because of its expertise and availability on short notice.

"Atkins is proficient in this specific task and Atkins had an engineering team available to respond in a very short period of time," he said. "We don't believe there is a specific conflict."

Amilcar noted that OC Transpo continues to retain the assistance of Transportation Resource Associates (TRA), the U.S.-based firm that was first hired to oversee the return-to-service plan following the September 2021 derailment. According to a previous memo issued on Monday, TRA was involved in the work to determine the required actions to begin a full risk assessment and the steps needed to return to service.