Hours after ETS suspended service on the Metro LRT Line due to damage found on dozens of LRT cars, officials said more than half of the damaged trains had been fixed.
For the Wednesday morning commute, 40 LRT trains were out of service due to damage found during routine inspections.
As a result, ETS suspended train service on the Metro LRT Line and replaced it with buses. Trains continued to run on the Capital LRT Line, but were supplemented with bus service between Southgate and University stations.
“We did not have enough trains to run Metro Line service this morning,” ETS Branch Manager Eddie Robar said. “As you can imagine, that creates a lot of complexities.”
Later Wednesday morning, ETS said service had been partially restored to the Metro LRT Line by midday, and crews were still working to fix the remaining damaged trains.
As of 3:15 p.m., full service on the Metro LRT Line had resumed, and trains on the Capital Line were running normally, but with fewer train cars.
Commuters heading south out of the downtown core will be able to use bus replacement between University and Century Park stations during rush hour.
By 3 p.m., ETS said 24 pantographs out of the 40 damaged trains had been fixed.
Officials still expected to have full or nearly full LRT service on line for Thursday’s commute.
Damage to electrical systems on trains
According to Robar, officials discovered damage to the trains’ pantographs – the electrical rigging system on top of each LRT car.
Robar said the damage stemmed from an issue with a catenary arm on the Capital LRT Line. That arm is connected to the overhead electrical lines throughout the entire LRT network. One arm, located near 92 Street, was found to be out of place days before.
The arm had been fixed, but damage to the trains was found Tuesday night.
“The arm is causing a friction point for the pantograph, the pantograph is clipping that,” Robar said Wednesday, adding that the pantograph on some trains had been bent.
“That bend creates a point of contact that could rip down the catenary.”
ETS inspected the line between 12:30 and 5 a.m. Wednesday, and found no other issues.
The issue on the line damaged 40 LRT trains, out of the 97 ETS has, and they had to be taken out of service for repairs.
“Replacing the service on the Metro Line was done simply because it’s a short route and there are less people to carry, so it’s easier for us to replace that service than it would be for us to replace service between Century Park and downtown,” Robar said.
