In an unknown corridor of Place Bonaventure sits a cockpit with hydraulic gears and hi-resolution monitors — an exact replica of the last three metres of one of the AZUR Metro trains.
Montreal’s transit agency, the STM, has trained more than 400 conductors with a new simulator that is designed to come as close to mimicking what it’s like to drive one of the trains.
“One of the biggest things that the simulator allowed us to do was to put the trainees in the cabin from day one,” said Annie Fontaine, an educational designer with the STM.
“You wouldn’t think to do that with a brand new driver in a real train.”
There are currently 45 AZUR trains on the city’s metro rails, and the STM recently decommissioned the original MR-63 cars after more than 50 years of service. Nine more AZUR trains should hit the rails in the coming months, with negotiations underway for as many as 17 more.
The high-tech simulator comes at a time when technology from one mode of transit to the other has moved ahead considerably.
“You could think about it like you could go from a rotary phone to an iPhone,” Fontaine said. “The operators are going from the old train to the new train.”