An Ottawa LRT train partially jumped the track on Friday as it was in the midst of testing at Belfast Yard.
According to Troy Charter, director of transit operations at OC Transpo, the incident happened around 5 a.m.
“As we are practising our launch activities, we had a minor derailment on one of the trains in which one set of 10 wheels on the train came off the tracks,” said Charter.
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Charter went on to say that no injuries occurred as a result of the derailment. The train, at the time, was travelling at a low rate of speed so there was no major damage to the vehicle or the tracks, either.
After the incident occurred, operations were immediately ceased so that OC Transpo could investigate.
“Our priority (in) this case, we immediately cease launch operations so we can focus on what happened to review and rectify it,” said Charter.
With an incident like this occurring so close to the launch, Charter wants to assure the public that this is a minor occurrence. With the review process that OC Transpo has in place, the public transit network aims to make sure an incident like this does not occur again, he added.
“We do our due diligence so when we have incidents like this that can occur anywhere, it’s important for us to make sure we do a detailed review and we make sure we know exactly what happened and if there’s any gaps that we need to close,” said Charter.
“But when this system launches, we know it’ll be a safe and reliable system for our customers and that’s everyone’s goal.”
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