Snowfall freezes LRT testing

There's been no testing of light railtrains on Ottawa's $2-billion Confederation Line since last week's severe snow storm, raising questions about how well the system will work in winter weather.

"We have not deployed the trains on the track since the end of the stormWednesday or Thursday," the city's general manager of transportation, John Manconi, confirmed Tuesday.

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As well, CBC News has learned that one light rail vehicle got stuck between Hurdman and Lees stations for two days because of the snow, and had to be towed to the maintenance and storage facility.

"If a vehicle was stuck there because of the snow conditions, that's probably the right thing to do because you don't want to damage the vehicle and push it through snow," Manconi said.

He added that the group building the LRThas had "very good days and they've had very challenging days. And that last storm was very, very challenging."

Clearing snow took days

The model of light rail vehicle being used onthe Confederation Line Alstom's CitadisSpirit has never been used beforein a public transit system.

CBC has been told that the Alstomvehicles have had trouble operating in just a few centimetres of snow, but Manconi said"that's not accurate."

Askedhow much snow accumulation the Citadis Spirit could drive through, Manconireplied: "It doesn't go by depth. It really varies in terms of temperatures" and other conditions.

Whensnow does accumulate, the 12.5-kilometre trackwill be plowed with specialized equipment, and there's a plan to clear snow from the stations.

However, Rideau Transit Groupthe SNC-Lavalin-led consortium building the LRT had some trouble last week with winter maintenancenear Tunney'sPasture.

"They were out this weekend, clearing the entire corridor from end to end," Manconi said.

3rddelay inevitable

Last week, RTG CEO Peter Lauch told citycouncillors he anticipated meeting the handover deadline of March 31,the project's third delivery target.

In fact, meeting that due date will be all but impossible.

Only 14 of 34 trains are ready. Ten haven't had their communications systems installed.

It's hard to see how there's enough time for RTG to complete 12 days of consecutive full-schedule testing in less than six weeks.

Now it appears snow is causing additional challenges.

However, Manconi stressed that just because thetrains aren't on the tracks, it doesn't mean they're not undergoing other kinds of testing.

"They do heat tests, they do the software upgrade tests right in the vehicle," he said, although he couldn't say if those tests werein factbeing performed.

"They do lots of tests in the maintenance storage facility and so on, but they haven't been tested on the track."