Ottawa’s light rail power issues will take a year to fix

Power problems on the O-Train's Confederation Line, which have caused arcing and trains to stall, will take another year to permanently fix.

The most notable power-related incidents include two trains losing power on New Year's Eve.

The permanent solution involves replacing the inductors that sit on top of the trains, through which power flows from the overhead line.

“That requires an engineering solution; it's a manufacturing process,” said Peter Lauch, CEO of Rideau Transit Maintenance, the private consortium that maintains the line for OC Transpo. “That is under way but that's about 12 months away, to start swapping out all of the inductors.”

In the meantime, RTM has begun rolling out a few temporary fixes that it hopes will reduce the frequency of power-related disruptions. New covers are being installed over the inductors, to try to reduce the amount of water, snow and dirt that can get into the inductors while still allowing air to flow through.

“These are air-cooled inductors, so you have to maintain the airflow through, over the inductor,” Lauch told the city's transit commission. “Those have now been installed on two trainsets.”

RTM has also increased the frequency of cleaning the inductors and now inspects them every two months.

The inductors used on the Confederation Line trains are unique to this model of train, which is being used for the first time in Ottawa.