O-Train line 1 in Ottawa had a partial shutdown on January 2

There was a partial shutdown on the O-train in Ottawa today. There was no service between Blair and Tremblay stations for about 5 hours. Concrete debris were found along the track inside the tunnel at St-Laurent Station halting service between Blair and Tremblay stations just after 10 a.m. Tuesday morning. The transit service said a “structural inspection” was underway at the station connected to St. Laurent Shopping Centre.

OC Transpo said on social media that the O-Train was shut down out of an “abundance of caution.

Unfortunately this is not a surprise as the O-Train has been plagued with problems since the service was launched in August 2019. Problems with derailments, door issues on some trains. There was freezing rain that damaged wires above the trains. Power outages. Disabled trains. Lots of things that have caused problems and led to widespread service outages.

Even now they are not running full capacity since another derailment in the summer led to service being suspended for about 4 weeks. Some of the trains running are single train sets instead of the two car sets that should normally be running.

I hope these issues get resolved before the expansions open. The extension to Trim is scheduled to open now in 2025. That is an extension of line 1. Line 2 is schedule to open this spring at last report. Those trains will operate from Bayview station past Greensboro (the former end point) and extend to Limebank station. That line will operate with diesel trains. Hopefully there will be less issues than the current Line 1 trains and those issues.

Line 1 also is being extended past Tunney’s Pasture station with eventual branches to both Baseline station and Moody Station. Once all those extensions open there will be a lot of new trains and hopefully all the bugs will be ironed out. I know todays disruption was not due to train issues but structural issues, they have all gone hand in hand. Lots of issues due to tracks or structure or even the power lines. But there has also been the issues with the trains. My hope is for Ottawa that all these problems get solved so that in the future the delays can be minimized so that this Muti-billion dollar train network actually works properly.

You can read more about todays shutdown here

and the summer derailment issues here