Ottawa Transit Developments

[CapitalSeven]

A footnote regarding the Alstom Trillium vehicles; they were a poor choice. They have fewer doors than the Talents to service the same number of passengers. The whole update from a few years back was badly botched, with most of the tens of millions of dollars wasted. Service capacity in the end increased by 25%, but with twice as many vehicles running, and the reduction in wait time of about 1.5 minutes on average was offset by the trip taking 3 minutes or so longer end to end. It was done more or less in house. City council won't try that again.

 

[lrt's friend]

A footnote regarding the Alstom Trillium vehicles; they were a poor choice. They have fewer doors than the Talents to service the same number of passengers. The whole update from a few years back was badly botched, with most of the tens of millions of dollars wasted. Service capacity in the end increased by 25%, but with twice as many vehicles running, and the reduction in wait time of about 1.5 minutes on average was offset by the trip taking 3 minutes or so longer end to end. It was done more or less in house. City council won't try that again.

Yes, the last upgrade was so badly botched, that trains routinely have to slow to a crawl at one of the passing locations.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Yes, the last upgrade was so badly botched, that trains routinely have to slow to a crawl at one of the passing locations.

Or a dead stop

 

[OCCheetos]

The second batch of Alstom trains also just happened to be available by adding onto a DB order.

I don't think that's right. The tender put out for those trains simply specified that they must have been used in the DB fleet for at least 5 years, and it happened that the LINT met those requirements. How the LINT compares to other trains that would have met the requirements, I don't know.

This batch is the first one that was actually chosen as part of a P3 process.

The Stadler FLIRTs were selected separately from the rest of the P3 process to make vehicle selection a non-factor in decided who to award the contract to. It seems like there was more freedom in selecting the new trains since they didn't try to get another version of a DB train (though the FLIRT has operated with DB for a while if I'm not mistaken). In other words, the trains are being built to an actual spec that the city came up with, vs before which was buying a literal off the shelf trains.

I've heard high praise about the FLIRT, so it is pretty likely that they'll stick with Stadler for future orders as well, assuming the FLIRTs do well.

as OC Transpo doesn't have any in house staff that actually maintains the trains unlike older players like Montreal and Toronto.

O-Train maintenance has been contracted out to Bombardier for the line's entire history. It'll be handed over to TransitNEXT next year though.
GO's maintenance is currently contracted to Bombardier too.

Metrolinx seems like it will also go mostly the P3 route, so it to will also likely end up with a new kind of train for each project.

They could always also procure vehicles separately.

 

[OCCheetos]

They have fewer doors than the Talents to service the same number of passengers.

Though annoying, that was hardly a factor in the upgrade's failure.

Another example of the new FLIRTs being ordered to a custom spec though, they'll have two doors per car.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

The big day is here ? ?

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Got to take my very first ride. Ignoring low floor, it feels very similar to the Montreal metro. The trains feel very subway like, quite different than trains I've ridden in Boston or Seattle. I'm surprised at how dim the lighting is on the trains though.

 

[kEiThZ]

The trains feel very subway like, quite different than trains I've ridden in Boston or Seattle.

Absolutely agree with this. The user experience feels like a subway/metro than LRT/streetcar. Everything from the size of the stations, size of the trains, to the acceleration, to the fare gates. This is not what comes to mind when you say "LRT".

I'm surprised at how dim the lighting is on the trains though.

A bit. But not a huge issue with 3 stations underground. Will have to see what it's like at night.

 

[Neutrino]

^Dim lighting is actually a god send for early morning and winter commutes when one just wants to sleep in transit. I've never liked the TTC's harsh lighting.

 

[W. K. Lis]

We were AMAZED and pleasantly surprised by how nice Ottawa's LRT is. Calling it an LRT is doing it an injustice because it really does feel like a metro similar to Montreal's. Trains were running every 4 minutes most of the day without a hitch.

By the way, making this video and releasing the same day the system opened was no small feat on me and my partner's parts, so enjoy the video, and please consider sharing it!

Ford Nation will still call it a streetcar.

 

[BurlOak]

We were AMAZED and pleasantly surprised by how nice Ottawa's LRT is. Calling it an LRT is doing it an injustice because it really does feel like a metro similar to Montreal's. Trains were running every 4 minutes most of the day without a hitch.

By the way, making this video and releasing the same day the system opened was no small feat on me and my partner's parts, so enjoy the video, and please consider sharing it!

It seems all people want is grade-separated Transit. Do you know if future extensions will also be grade-separated.?

Is it really called Line 1? I thought it was the Confederation Line, or logically, the C-Line. The other line could be the Trillium Line, or T-Line. I thought Toronto was a bit stupid for numbering 4 lines - when they already had names that could be abbreviated by 1 letter. But Ottawa with only 2 lines seems even worse.

 

[kEiThZ]

Do you know if future extensions will also be grade-separated.?

As of now, they don't have any portion that is not grade separated under construction for Stage 2 or being planned in Stage 3.

It's becoming apparent that planning this as an LRT and building around using Light Rail Vehicles was a mistake. They could have spent a few percent more and gotten fully automated heavy rail vehicles with platform screen doors. Possibly even fully enclosed stations. Open stations in Ottawa weather (winter and summer) ain't great. Heck, building heavy rail, fully automated transit might have been cheaper. The chose LRT because at the time they envisioned the suburbs running on the street like Eglinton. But nobody wants to do that now and they're planning billion dollars extensions to Barrhaven and Kanata that are fully grade-separated.

Is it really called Line 1? I thought it was the Confederation Line, or logically, the C-Line. The other line could be the Trillium Line, or T-Line. I thought Toronto was a bit stupid for numbering 4 lines - when they already had names that could be abbreviated by 1 letter. But Ottawa with only 2 lines seems even worse.

Numbering lines is a universal convention. We're just late to the party in Canada. They use to call the Trillium Line, the "O-Train". They expropriated that name to apply to the entire rail network. And now it's "Confederation Line 1" and "Trillium Line 2".

 

[robmausser]

It seems all people want is grade-separated Transit. Do you know if future extensions will also be grade-separated.?

Is it really called Line 1? I thought it was the Confederation Line, or logically, the C-Line. The other line could be the Trillium Line, or T-Line. I thought Toronto was a bit stupid for numbering 4 lines - when they already had names that could be abbreviated by 1 letter. But Ottawa with only 2 lines seems even worse.

All currently planned extensions are grade separated.

But the nice thing about using low floor LRTs that further extensions could be non-grade separated.

Which actually isn't such a bad thing, because that would really start getting into low-density areas where only a "streetcar style" LRT would make any sense.

 

[robmausser]

They could have spent a few percent more and gotten fully automated heavy rail vehicles with platform screen doors. Possibly even fully enclosed stations. Open stations in Ottawa weather (winter and summer) ain't great.

I believe the Ottawa line uses PTC, as will the Eglinton line.

Screen doors could be used. Just not worth it on this line

 

[kEiThZ]

Screen doors could be used. Just not worth it on this line

Given Ottawa's climate, they should have gone for fully enclosed platforms with screen doors. Wouldn't cost that much more. And full automation would at least offset some ops and maintenance costs.