Faulty brake caused morning LRT disruption, says city

After a three-hour disruption along Ottawa's light rail transit line Monday morning, the city says a faulty brake is to blame.

Shortly after 9 a.m., "a brake fault caused a train to stop at Tunney's Pasture Station," the city explained in an update Monday afternoon.

The issue caused disruptions at Lyon, Pimisi, and Bayview stations along eastbound platforms and passengers were required to change trains.

Full service returned at about 12:20 p.m., the city said in an email attributed to rail operations director Troy Charter.

In a photo submitted to CBC Ottawa, some passengers were seen getting off a stuck train and appear to be walking along train tracks to the platform.

"When an issue occurs that requires trains to stop between platforms, troubleshooting steps are taken to avoid customers from having to disembark a train onto the tracks. Unfortunately, the issue from earlier today caused a delay of approximately 45 minutes before all customers were on the platform and on their way," said an email received Monday night attributed to Charter.

"All safety precautions were followed and customers were able to get to the platform safely."

Brake faults are common and can happen for a number of reasons, said the email.

The train that had problems Monday morning came to a stop outside Tunney's Pasture station because of an issue with a transponder, something that keeps track of the train's location.

"Following the stop, the train encountered brake faults that required a Rideau Transit Maintenance technician to attend to the train," the email said.

Across Line 1, passengers experienced delays as trains were held for longer than average wait times at several platforms.

On Sunday evening, OC Transpo reported a stopped train causing service interruptions at Cyrville and St-Laurent stations on eastbound platforms. That issue was resolved shortly after 7 p.m.

This train was also dealing with a brake fault, according to Charter's email Monday night.

"During this occurrence, service continued along the entire line with trains operating on a single track between St Laurent and Blair Stations."

This latest disruption comes less than two weeks after the LRT service was disrupted for nearly six full days following freezing rain, and further damage done to the system during attempts to fix it.