LRT expected to return to service Monday with 8 single-car trains, a fraction of its fleet

Ottawa's light rail transit system is expected to return to serviceMonday with just eight single-car trains,a fraction of its total 45-car fleet, OC Transpo says.

In a memo tomayor and councillors Wednesday afternoon, Rene Amilcar, the city's general manager of transit services, said thereduced fleet size will be enough to meet current customer demand. The LRTsystemnormally operates with two-vehicle trains.

The eight single-car trains will run approximately every seven to eight minutes, the memo said.

The current number of R1 replacement buses will continue to operate in parallel to the LRT, Amilcaradded, and the city'stransit operations control centre will be closely monitoring passenger volumes at stations.

"With eight single trains and the R1 service, this will be a very, very good service,"Amilcar saidat a Wednesday afternoon news conference. The full news conference is available in the player above.

Theeight-car arrangementand parallel R1 serviceis expected to lastweeks with no set end date, she added. This arrangement will continue to affect serviceon other busroutes across the city.

"Once we can be assured that there is a sustainable number of vehicles for daily operation, we will assess the possibility of increasing the number of trains in service," Amilcar said.

The train'smaker and the consortium that built the system provided a draft safety notice to OC TranspoWednesday, the memo said. That notice recommended that leading and trailing wheel hub assemblies and axleson the trains be replaced every 60,000 kilometres.

RTG is replacing axles across theentirefleet andhopes to have the axles on ten carsreplacedby Sunday,saidEnrique Martinez Asensio, general manager of Rideau Transit Maintenance (RTG).

The newthreshold means axles will need to be replaced every six months moving forward, Amilcar said.

Investigation ongoing

At a media briefingTuesday, the agency said the inspection of its LRT fleet was complete and six vehicles had been identified as needing further inspection.

As a result, those trains are being inspected further out of "an abundance of caution," said Amilcar said at the Tuesday afternoon news conference.

"We don't want to take any chance with those six vehicles," Amilcar said. "It's normal, but because we are conducting this huge investigation, it's time to have a deep dive on everything, and we don't wantto take any risk."

LRT service has been shut down since last Monday due to bearing issues in the axle hub assemblies of its trains.

The train's maker, Alstom, and RTG,the consortium that built the Confederation Line, areredesigning the wheel hub assembly as part of a permanent solution, though the root cause of the issues still hasn't been identified.

At a news conference earlier this week, OC Transpo said it was planning a gradual return to service starting Monday July 31, which would mark two weeks since the LRT was operating.