Ottawa Transit Developments

[ARG1]

The derailment and these issues have nothing with the type of vehicle. It has to do with lack of experience and poor management. Lack of oversight.

I really doubt this. You're using a vehicle that was designed to be run on street with slow average speeds - a tram style service, in a metro style service where its constantly running at high speeds and is constantly being abused by large crowds. Its like pulling a trailer with an SUV - technically possible but don't be surprised when things quickly start breaking down.

 

[Jonny5]

I don't think anyone is blaming Alstom, it was RTG and the city that chose the vehicles. Even Alstom at some point came in and asked the city "Yo, why do you want these, you should be using our Metropolis line of trains, using these are a bad idea", and the city persisted that IT MUST BE LRT.

The cynic in me says that would be the very first thing forgotten by anyone on a particular side of a future LRT vehicle selection. I would Alstom knows enough about Ontario to think the same.

 

[Steve X]

I really doubt this. You're using a vehicle that was designed to be run on street with slow average speeds - a tram style service, in a metro style service where its constantly running at high speeds and is constantly being abused by large crowds. Its like pulling a trailer with an SUV - technically possible but don't be surprised when things quickly start breaking down.

Using low floor vehicles is the biggest mistake. It just cost more to build and maintain. They really are for premetro systems, not a fully grade separated one. Large crowds shouldn't be a major issue. The streetcars on King get the same abuse and is in line with Ottawa.

Eglinton will get all its issues with the Freedom and their tiny front doors. With longer station spacing, MDBF would be significantly higher. Let's see if they can reach 100,000 km. The streetcar's target is 35k while the T1 trains are averaging 350k and TRs are at 700k. I wonder if there is a performance difference for the T1's on Line 1 vs Line 2 when they operated on both lines back then.

 

[Bordercollie]

I really doubt this. You're using a vehicle that was designed to be run on street with slow average speeds - a tram style service, in a metro style service where its constantly running at high speeds and is constantly being abused by large crowds. Its like pulling a trailer with an SUV - technically possible but don't be surprised when things quickly start breaking down.

From their website:
Citadis is a class of low-floor trams developed by France based transportation company Alstom. It is built on a standard platform which can be easily customised.

The tram operates at an average speed of 70km/h and is capable of running on multiple electric power systems with or without overhead cables.

Unless you expect them to run at an average speed of 140kmph I think that the equiptment is not the problem.

 

[ARG1]

From their website:
Citadis is a class of low-floor trams developed by France based transportation company Alstom. It is built on a standard platform which can be easily customised.

The tram operates at an average speed of 70km/h and is capable of running on multiple electric power systems with or without overhead cables.

Unless you expect them to run at an average speed of 140kmph I think that the equiptment is not the problem.

As I said, they can run at those speeds, its technically possible, but its really pushing their design to an absolute limit. The amount of wear trains get under Metro style operations is significantly more than a tram style operations. Also don't forget that we're talking about Low Floor trains, where the bogeys and engines are fitted into a very tight physical space, meaning that they are even more prone to wear and tear (and for this reason, LFLRVs are often far more expensive to maintain than their high floor counterparts).

These trains COULD run at an average speed of 70km/h, but they weren't designed to run at that speed at 3 minute headways for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. The "typical use case" for these trains would me mostly on street operation where its travelling maybe 20-30km/h, with occasional off street segments where it would reach that 70km/h - just like iON (and surprise surprise, one of these systems is constantly having mechanical and maintenance problems, while the other one isn't, I wonder why?).

 

[KevinT]

The "typical use case" for these trains would me mostly on street operation where its travelling maybe 20-30km/h, with occasional off street segments where it would reach that 70km/h - just like iON (and surprise surprise, one of these systems is constantly having mechanical and maintenance problems, while the other one isn't, I wonder why?).

Maintenance. I think the transmission falling off due to a failure to tighten some bolts proved that pretty conclusively. The GrandLinq consortium includes Keolis, who operates the system on behalf of the region. They know their shlitz.

 

[OCCheetos]

Everyone was blaming the construction of the line and the actaul vehicles built by Alstom when this thing debuted but it sounds more and more that the issues with this line are with how its being operated and maintained.

Exactly. This project is giving Alstom a bad name when the operator can't even do maintenance properly. It's like putting the wrong gas in a Toyota and saying their cars suck after breaking down.

Reminder: Alstom was also subcontracted to perform maintenance on these vehicles.

I don't think anyone is blaming Alstom, it was RTG and the city that chose the vehicles. Even Alstom at some point came in and asked the city "Yo, why do you want these, you should be using our Metropolis line of trains, using these are a bad idea", and the city persisted that IT MUST BE LRT.

I don't think it was Alstom who did that, but someone did. In any case, RTG was awarded the bid before the vehicle selection was done. They chose between Siemens and Alstom. i.e. Alstom had very little to do with the development of the bid.

 

[gweed123]

I don't think anyone is blaming Alstom, it was RTG and the city that chose the vehicles. Even Alstom at some point came in and asked the city "Yo, why do you want these, you should be using our Metropolis line of trains, using these are a bad idea", and the city persisted that IT MUST BE LRT.

It honestly looks like the City just copied/kept the requirements from the old N-S line, which did have street running sections. When the decision was made to go 100% grade-separated, either nobody went back to do an analysis on whether low-floor LRVs was still the best option, or if they did the higher-ups ignored it.

The Confederation Line should 100% be using high-floor light metro vehicles, not low-floor LRVs.

 

[Bordercollie]

It honestly looks like the City just copied/kept the requirements from the old N-S line, which did have street running sections. When the decision was made to go 100% grade-separated, either nobody went back to do an analysis on whether low-floor LRVs was still the best option, or if they did the higher-ups ignored it.

The Confederation Line should 100% be using high-floor light metro vehicles, not low-floor LRVs.

I'm sorry but are you one of the Engineers who designed the system or the trains? Do you have any actual background on this? Because low floor or high floor the components are the same.

Maybe the duty cycles need to be adjusted to account for wear and tear but that has nothing to do with the design of the trains. This is specifically a maintenance and overview issue.

 

[ARG1]

I'm sorry but are you one of the Engineers who designed the system or the trains? Do you have any actual background on this? Because low floor or high floor the components are the same.

Maybe the duty cycles need to be adjusted to account for wear and tear but that has nothing to do with the design of the trains. This is specifically a maintenance and overview issue.

I am basing this off of what engineers who have experience in this field have told me.

 

[gweed123]

I'm sorry but are you one of the Engineers who designed the system or the trains? Do you have any actual background on this? Because low floor or high floor the components are the same.

Maybe the duty cycles need to be adjusted to account for wear and tear but that has nothing to do with the design of the trains. This is specifically a maintenance and overview issue.

I wasn't referring to low vs high floor from a reliability standpoint, but rather from a capacity standpoint. Low floor really only makes sense if you have street-level platforms. If your system is entirely grade-separated and using full stations, high floor increases the capacity of each vehicle, and can be configured in a wider variety of internal layouts.

Snarky reply noted though.

 

[allengeorge]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/lrt-reliability-issue-testing-john-manconi-1.6249830

Definitely not looking good for RTG, Alstom, or Ottawa politicians. If I were the public I’d be furious: where are the vaunted P3 advantages?

EDIT: Actually, it looks really bad for all 3 parties. Looks like maintenance was bad, the trains were known to be unreliable, and the city signed off regardless.

 

[Northern Light]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/lrt-reliability-issue-testing-john-manconi-1.6249830

Definitely not looking good for RTG, Alstom, or Ottawa politicians. If I were the public I’d be furious: where are the vaunted P3 advantages?

Contemptible. Egregious are two words that come to mind in reading that piece.

That Alstom, on at least one occasion, apparently had no technician available during the critical 12-day testing phase borders the unbelievable.

The litany of problems is extraordinary.

The consortium partners should be held legally, and financially responsible, even if that means replacing ever km of track and every vehicle.

Further, if there is evidence that the Mayor of Ottawa pressured premature acceptance, a resignation is only the beginning of what needs to be expected from him.

 

[nfitz]

It does make it clear the PPP concept simply won't work unless they are held to a very high standard. Is Metrolinx up for it, one wonders. TTC will keep them on the straight-and-narrow on some projects - but Ontario Line?

We should give Grand River Transit more credit for getting the Waterloo line up with relatively few problems! Interesting that neither Bombardier or Alstom were involved in that consortium - merely being a supplier.

Makes you wonder what we are in for here with Line 5 and Line 6. The Eglinton consortium is almost the same as Ottawa, but with Aecon thrown in as well. But at the same time Aecon was a big part of the Waterloo Ion - and the Finch line. Puzzling ...

How did Ottawa ever sign off on the line, when the issues were already so well known? Did political forces take over?

 

[superelevation]

Exactly. This project is giving Alstom a bad name when the operator can't even do maintenance properly. It's like putting the wrong gas in a Toyota and saying their cars suck after breaking down.

No reason it can't be both

The derailment and these issues have nothing with the type of vehicle. It has to do with lack of experience and poor management. Lack of oversight.

From their website:
Citadis is a class of low-floor trams developed by France based transportation company Alstom. It is built on a standard platform which can be easily customised.

The tram operates at an average speed of 70km/h and is capable of running on multiple electric power systems with or without overhead cables.

Unless you expect them to run at an average speed of 140kmph I think that the equiptment is not the problem.

I'm sorry but are you one of the Engineers who designed the system or the trains? Do you have any actual background on this? Because low floor or high floor the components are the same.

Maybe the duty cycles need to be adjusted to account for wear and tear but that has nothing to do with the design of the trains. This is specifically a maintenance and overview issue.

The components are *not* the same. The suspension etc is completely different. The vehicles have there issues.