Ottawa citizen transit commissioner calling O-Train derailment ‘deeply disturbing’
Posted Aug 9, 2021 08:32:00 PM.
One of the City of Ottawa's citizen transit commissioners is calling the O-Train's single-axle derailment 'unfathomable' and 'deeply disturbing.'
Sarah Wright-Gilbert tells CityNews Ottawa's The Sam Laprade Show, what keeps her up at night is the fact that this situation could have been much worse.
“Thankfully it was one axle, there were no passengers on board and it was at a relatively low speed,” she says. “But as we know, those trains get up to, I think it's about 80 kilometres per hour in some stretches of the LRT.”
OC Transpo Director of Transit Operations Troy Charter explains a process is underway to figure out what went wrong on Sunday.
“That train needs to be removed from Tunney's Pasture and returned to the main storage facility so that it can assist in the root cause investigation,” he says. “We need to determine the root cause of this occurrence and then, concurrently, [determine] what actions do we need to take to ensure safe, reliable service for our customers.”
Charter says Line 1 light rail service isn't likely to run for a few days, as investigators need the time to make sure this same issue cannot happen on any of the other trains in Ottawa's fleet.
Rideau Transit Maintenance and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) have both launched investigations as well.
Listen to the full interview with Sarah Wright-Gilbert from Monday's edition of The Sam Laprade Show:
