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Some 500 city employees and their families will get a first ride on the Trillium Line LRT on Saturday in a full dress rehearsal for the start of revenue service.
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OC Transpo says it will announce at a special briefing on Dec. 6 when the long-delayed north-south train will open for customers, but Saturday’s dress rehearsal will give train operators a feel for what to expect.
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“It’s really an opportunity for transit operation, for the control centre, for operators and the whole team involved in running the Trillium Line, to get a sense of what it’s like to have passengers using the system,” Richard Holder, the City of Ottawa’s director of rail construction, said Friday.
“We’re mimicking opening day. We’ll be using staff and their families. They’ll be entering the station. they’ll be using the elevators. They’ll be waiting on platforms. They’ll be interacting with the system. So it’s a very good opportunity for staff to see how they need to interact with passengers,” he said.
The new Line 2 LRT extends south to Limebank Road with a new four-kilometre spur line, known as Line 4, running from South Keys to the Ottawa International Airport. Unlike the Confederation Line, which relies on electric power, Trillium Line trains run on diesel.
The two lines add 12 more stations to the city’s LRT network.
This past week the city said it had achieved “substantial completion” of the Trillium Line, which was built by TransitNEXT. It is still awaiting the final licence and safety checks from regulating authorities.
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“We’ve done many drills and exercises over many months,” Holder said. “We’ve had the trial running exercise, which is really about the performance of the system. That was the exam for TNext. Now we’re getting into the exam for OC Transpo. It’s about getting familiar with dealing with passengers.”
The dress rehearsal will run for several hours on Nov. 30, but won’t include a full day of service, he said.
Meanwhile, while the opening of the Trillium Line nears, the opening of the eastward extension of the Confederation Line to Trim Road has moved further away. Transit General Manager Renée Amilcar told a meeting of the city’s LRT subcommittee Friday that the eastward extension was now expected to open in the third or fourth quarter of 2025. Earlier this year, she said she hoped it would be ready by spring.
That frustrated Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney, especially since the train won’t be ready in time for next summer’s Bluesfest.
“It’s slippage, right?” said Tierney, who said he was frustrated to have not known about the delays sooner. “We’re trying to creates some buzz here about some of the changes.”
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