Mechanical issues on O-Train Line 4 delay passengers on Line 2 and 4 Monday morning

An Alstom LINT train arrives at Airport Station at the Ottawa International Airport on Monday. The new O-Train Line 4 runs between South Keys station and the Ottawa Airport. (Dave Charbonneau/CTV News Ottawa)

One week after a successful launch of O-Train Lines 2 and 4, OC Transpo is reporting some mechanical issues in the trains serving the Ottawa airport.

There were two mechanical issues on Line 4, the spur from South Keys Station to the airport, which caused some delays for riders on Line 2 as well.

The first issue happened at around 6:35 a.m. when a Line 4 train stopped at South Keys. A technician was dispatched to troubleshoot the stopped train and was able to return it into service at 7 a.m., OC Transpo spokesperson Katrina Camposarcone-Stubbs said. During this time, rail service was temporarily held on Lines 2 and 4 for approximately 15 minutes.

At around 7:30 a.m., the same train experienced the issue again when stopping at South Keys Station. The train was taken out of service by 8 a.m.

Service was temporarily held on both lines and then resumed with diversions in place until the affected train could be removed, Camposarcone-Stubbs told CTV News Ottawa. Residual delays recovered throughout the morning as full service continued across both lines.

“OC Transpo and TransitNext are reviewing all aspects of this morning’s response to capture lessons learned and determine if adjustments can be made. We thank customers for their patience as we worked to quickly resolve this issue and restore service,” Camposarcone-Stubbs wrote.

Line 4 uses the Alstom LINT diesel trains that previously operated for several years on the former eight-kilometre north-south O-Train line. These trains first went into service in 2015.

Lines 2 and 4 launched Jan. 6 and ran without any major issues reported for its first week of service. Currently, the trains do not run on weekends. The soft launch of the lines means there will be a minimum two weeks of five-day service before Saturday service is added, and then another minimum of two weeks of six-day service before trains run on Sundays. It’s unclear if these delays might contribute to extending how long Lines 2 and 4 run on a five-day schedule.

--With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Josh Pringle