We are now:
Projected Revenue Service Availability in 4 days 2 hours 52 minutes 55 seconds

To me, I have seen (and I am sure many of you have as well ) discussions in which it was determined that Substantial Completion wouldn't be achieved and yet 1-2 days later it was confirmed by both the City and Independent Certifier. I am hopeful.

The city has made it clear that no updates would be provided until the test phase is completed. While I don't think we will need to wait for FEDCO in September, the date of August 16th is the current RSA and RTG will be penalized if they miss it. As has been the case before, the city has released memos when such an event occurs. If they do not make August 16th, we will very likely hear about it on August 16th or very shortly after.

RTG set the new RSA date back on June 18th. Alstom had promised the trains would be 'finished' by July 7th, which the city later confirmed took place. Alot of final milestones are being met, lets hope the big one regarding the 12 day test is as well.

What are your thoughts? Do you think RSA will be achieved by August 16th. While there are certainly lots of rumours and news against it happening by that date, many do suggest it wouldn't be far off if they miss, saying by end of the month...

I am quite sceptic of them achieving RSA by then. Passing the 12 days doesn't automatically get them to RSA, and unless everything has been going fault-free since the 4th (which reports tend to suggest is not the case), Friday seems quite optimistic.

When announced, the timeline was already quite aggressive, and left little to no margin for error. I still believe RSA is going to be before the end of August, though not the actual RSA they submitted.

I want all the rumors to be wrong, I want the RSA on Friday to be met and us riding by mid September. However deep down I don't think it will happen.

My new predictions,

 RSA and hand over to the City September 6th.

Open to the public on either September 30th or October 7th. 

A good article by Blair Crawford of the Ottawa Citizen today on the current status of the LRT, after speaking to Mayor Jim Watson. No update on how things are going but the mayor reiterated his confidence of receiving the system this month, and passengers riding the rails in September.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/watson-confident-lrt-will-be-carrying-passengers-in-september-as-promised

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“I get briefed every couple of days on it so I have another briefing on it tomorrow (Friday),” Watson said. “If there’s any news that we have to report out, we’ll report it tomorrow.

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“The moment we have the testing complete, the very next day, if it doesn’t fall on a Saturday or a Sunday, we will have a technical briefing that will answer all the questions about the testing and the specific date for when people will ride the rails and the specific date for the official launch.”

So from these details, it would seem like things will move fast as far as getting information out once the testing is completed and RSA is achieved.

The City of Ottawa has just released the following MEMO on the Confederation Line. A briefing will be held next week to provide further updates about Trial Running, Revenue Service Availability (RSA) and the opening.

https://www.otrainfans.ca/news/memo-update-on-the-o-train-confederation-line-rsa

5 hours ago, Shane said:

The City of Ottawa has just released the following MEMO on the Confederation Line. A briefing will be held next week to provide further updates about Trial Running, Revenue Service Availability (RSA) and the opening.

https://www.otrainfans.ca/news/memo-update-on-the-o-train-confederation-line-rsa

Any Idea on when the briefing will be?

No idea. All depending on when it will be, I plan to attend.

 

On 8/16/2019 at 2:44 PM, Shane said:

No idea. All depending on when it will be, I plan to attend.

Heard anything else regarding the timing of the briefing?

Apparently accredited media will get to have a train ride, lucky people. Maybe I should try to get my YouTube channel to be considered accredited even though I LITERALLY have never made a video relating to Ottawa, transit or anything else than gaming / tech. ?

Still nothing so far. I'm sure when the notice does drop it will be for either the next day or the day after at most. Hoping that if it is this week, that it isn't on Wednesday, as the weather looks poor in the forecast.

I am simply copy / pasting a burner post that was sent on Reddit. Poster couldn't / wouldn't provide any proof of his link to the project, though the actual post brings forward quite a series of "serious" accusations.

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So, using a burner as I might loose my job on it, but this is too much now...

The consortium has still been unable to perform a correct trial run for the Confederation Line; being unable to run the line during 12 "perfect days". So far, they have been able to go up to day 5, or 6 but they are having issue with the Alstom trains. Alstom is now trying to bring all their experts from the World to try to resolve the availability and reliability issues.

The consortium is also trying to bring experts (not employed by the consortium) to support and help to fix this mess. Worst: The City has agreed to change the rules of the trial run. Failures will no longer reset the counter to "Day 0" but to "Day x", whatever was the day x when the failure happened.

Working in this field, this is simply disgusting and a disgrace. This is just dangerous for the public and should not been allowed. I wanted to make sure the truth would go out to be able to look at myself in the mirror... Enjoy the mess...

If the city is confident to launch in September, there is a lot of questions regarding the validity of those claims, mainly that the city, as per the PA, wouldn't be able to launch until testing is complete, and seconded by an independent certifier.

It also brings a lot of questions regarding the expected briefing, as the city stated many times that no comment would be made until the completion of the tests.

On the other hand, if the claims are true, it leaves a few questions:

• Why did the city state that Alstom "completed" the trains if it was far from the truth?
• How was RSA accepted if the issue is (what I consider) to not be minor?
• Given the requirements for availability of fleet, why would the city accept such a compromise that almsot certainly mean that not enough vehicles would be available for launch?

In the comments, poster brings the following points, with no additional details. Verbatim copy.

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There are also issues with the rails, but nothing new, at least for us...

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To answer the main question, failures are mainly train related, with a big emphasis on doors malfunctioning.

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A little bit of everything, except doors opening in motion (yet ?). Emergency doors release works but that should always be the last resort

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One of the major issue was that OC Transpo didn't know anything about rail business. This is different than bus transit and the small line they have didn't get them enough expertise in rail. Once they realised, they brought experts consultants but it was too late. The consortium was already too deep into trouble and systems integration troubles. This was a failure meant to happen.

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Yes and no. OC Transpo is managing the contract so they have a little bit of responsibility in the fiasco. The biggest offender however are the consortium to be honest and they know it. It's not a surprise if SNC wants to get out of this type of contracts/projects.

UPDATE: Poster removed their post on Reddit, so and didn't want to offer any meaningful way to verify theirselves, so I consider this just to be fear mongering at this point.

Edited August 20, 20197 yr by DavidBellerive
Follow-up

Hi David. Do you have a link to the post on reddit? Thanks

I hope this isn’t true. I don’t think the city would change their position on how the test works and resets. Such a change as outlined here would put all the risk (financially and otherwise) on the city when  things aren’t up to par and need to be addressed. 

As before, we should take this info with a grain of salt. Remember how there was some commentary online a day or two before Substantial Completion was confirmed by both the city and the Certifier, in how it was not going to be accepted? 

EDIT: found the link. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/comments/csrfie/confederation_line_update_on_trial_run/

I also posted in that Reddit thread, I find it very difficult to believe him he brought up two issues the doors and the track buckling. it has not been hot enough for the track to be buckling right now I find that hard to believe. He also gave no new evidence about the doors and I have yet to see a train stuck at a station with it doors open. I called him out.

2 minutes ago, Jebus05 said:

I also posted in that Reddit thread, I find it very difficult to believe him he brought up two issues the doors and the track buckling. it has not been hot enough for the track to be buckling right now I find that hard to believe. He also gave no new evidence about the doors and I have yet to see a train stuck at a station with it doors open. I called him out.

I noted both of these things too (although a little differently I guess?)

These were both known issues that had occurred and were reported on, but to me neither of them would suggest any risk to safety. I would believe it if the doors still weren't working perfectly though we haven't heard anything about that, and like you mentioned it just hasn't been hot enough for sun kinks the last couple of weeks but we do know that they had some problems with that back in July. Just a maintenance thing though.

Exactly. There are unfortunately a lot of bitter people out there in the city and with the negative publicity the project has received over the past while, wouldn't be hard for someone to slip in their two cents and stir the pot once again.

Every time I go by the stations, the trains are moving at a high service frequency. Again Manconi had said that there would be days that trains don't operate, days where different scenarios are tested and trialled. As such our observations aren't always indicative of what is truly taking place.

Good on the call out @Jebus05

And there we have it. The post was deleted on Reddit, as well as the user who posted it. Like a grain of salt in the wind.

There is now a "Removed update on LRT Confederation Line" topic on Reddit about this questionable post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/comments/csxsjz/removed_update_on_lrt_confederation_line/