Canada’s watchdog in charge of transportation safety said Friday it is conducting an investigation into wheel cracks on Ottawa’s light-rail transit (LRT) system.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said in a brief that four wheels on three separate Confederation Line trains were found to have cracks during recent maintenance and inspection activities.
OC Transpo said a week ago that the discovery of a steel crack on one train’s wheel had prompted a fleet-wide inspection, taking numerous trains out of service on a Friday morning.
The TSB said it is conducting a “class 3” investigation into the wheel crack issues. These investigations analyze a “small number” of safety issues according to the TSB website, and are usually completed within 450 days.
The local transit agency said on Tuesday it is shuttering service on the line two hours early each night this week to undertake track repairs and maintenance.
These latest issues follow a full week of closures on the line to conduct additional maintenance in hopes to getting Ottawa’s LRT running at full service by the fall.