Officials blame Ottawa LRT shutdown on 'unique' ice buildup
More than a month since a section of Ottawa’s LRT system shut down for six days after a freezing rainstorm, officials have revealed the cause of the outage.
The short answer: it was ice.
But how the ice got there, officials said, was due to a “unique combination of factors.”
Those factors led to two trains on the Confederation Line, one eastbound and one westbound, getting stuck near Hurdman Station. Two trains later sent to help also got stuck.
The city and its LRT contractor Rideau Transit Maintenance said they are exploring several options—from anti-icing treatments to a rescue diesel train—to stop a similar outage from happening again.
It is not clear why, after four years of operating the system, some of the ice mitigation strategies have not been put in place.
‘Unique’ weather conditions
The city’s transit commission heard details for the first time on Thursday about what exactly led to the shutdown in early January.
The six-day shutdown happened when some freezing rain caused buildup on the overhead wire that powers the trains between Hurdman and Lees stations. Service still ran on parts of the line farther east and west.
A stopped LRT train just east of Hurdman Station on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (Jim O'Grady/CTV News Ottawa)
Richard Holder, the city’s director of engineering, said specific conditions at the time led to more ice buildup on the wires than usual.
The Rideau River was ice-free due to a warmer-than-usual start to January, he said. That led to high levels of humidity in the area, which led to further accumulation on top of the freezing rain. This all led to ice quickly building up on the overhead catenary wire that powers the trains, he said.
“This unique combination of factors caused greater ice building in that area than elsewhere on the system,” Holder said. “We’re very certain that this occurred because of the accumulated ice on the OCS contact wire.”
Contact wire ‘melted’
When recovery trains were dispatched later, they were forced to go slowly, which resulted in a lot of electrical arcing on a small section of the contact wire.
“Normally when a vehicle is moving fast and you get arcing, the arcing event is spread out over a larger area, with the vehicles basically stationary that arcing all occurred in the same section, creating a huge amount of energy, a huge amount of heat generated,” he said.
“The contact wires basically melted,” Holder said.
Crews then had to spent several days clearing ice off the wires and then fixing the wires. They broke ice by hand off about 5.6 kilometres of the line, from uOttawa station all the way to Tremblay station.
A worker repairs overhead wires on a stalled LRT OC Transpo train near Lees Ave., station in Ottawa, on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. According to city officials freezing rain partially shut down train service between a number of station in the city’s east-end damaging overhead wires. (Spencer Colby/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
“That breaking of the ice, and when I say by hand, it is literally somebody in a high-rail vehicle on a bucket breaking the ice off by hand,” he said.
And while repairing the wires only took a few hours, he said a full inspection of the system took several days.
City looking into diesel rescue train
The city and Rideau Transit Maintenance have established a working group on the overhead wires.
Certain changes have already been made. The city is installing winter carbons on light rail vehicles, Holder said.
“Those are a brass insert installed into the pantograph, which have a more aggressive metal edge and are able to break through and shear off the ice accumulation,” he said.
OC Transpo will also “strategically” place staff on the line for monitoring ice buildup and arcing, he said. And a new onboard train diagnostic system will give advance warning for issues happening with the vehicle, such as voltage drops.
Down the line, the city is also investigating use of anti-icing treatments to be used on the contact wires in advance of freezing rain, Holder said. The Toronto Transit Commission uses such a system.
“They have a pretty extensive program for their trams where they have vehicles out on the street continually spraying anti-freezing agents onto the OCS,” he said.
They are also looking at procuring a diesel recovery train, which wouldn’t be affected by problems with the overhead wire.
“I’m kind of shocked we don’t have one of those yet,” Coun. Tim Tierney told transit commission.
RTM head Mario Guerra said they are already looking for such a vehicle.
“You can appreciate our system is unique in terms of the envelope, so it’s going to prove difficult to get something off the shelf that would fit into our system,” he said. “But we also have some equipment here that we think we might be able to alter for that purpose.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Lanny McDonald and a few old Flames take the Stanley Cup on a surprise visit to the man who saved his life
The Stanley Cup was passing through town Friday, and Lanny Legend took it upon himself to take it for a surprise visit.
Bathroom break nearly derails $22 million project at city council meeting
A brief break during Wednesday's city council meeting in Saskatoon nearly cost the city dearly.
Chad Daybell sentenced to death for killing wife and girlfriend’s two children in jury decision
Jurors resumed deliberations Saturday on whether a man should be sentenced to death after being convicted days earlier of the murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children in Idaho.
Robert Pickton stabbed with toothbrush and broken broom handle: victim's family
The family of one of Robert Pickton's victims says the convicted serial killer suffered an incredibly violent death at the hands of another inmate.
Father who killed one-year-old son with axe may be allowed to travel in southwestern Ontario
A Mennonite father who killed his one-year-old son with an axe may be allowed to travel to parts of southern Ontario in the coming months
'It feels like freedom': Why some Albertans like going nude in nature
Few people can say they accidentally purchased a nude beach — but Shelley can. When she saw a piece of land she could fondly remember camping on was up for sale, she inquired about it and ended up purchasing it. She soon found that there were already inhabitants on it.
This Calgary home has a giant tree in the middle, and it's for sale
There's a luxury 'tree home' for sale in Calgary.
China lands spacecraft on the moon amid growing space rivalry with U.S.
A Chinese spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon Sunday to collect soil and rock samples that could provide insights into differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side.
Pedestrian dies after being hit by train in Brockville, Ont.
Brockville Police says a pedestrian has died following a collision with a train that was heading to Toronto.