It's time to talk about the O-Train again

I've avoided it long enough. Mostly, my neglect of the O-Train has more to do with the fact that I no longer commute to work. But with federal public servants mostly mandated to be in an office three days a week, there is a good reason to check back in with Ottawa's ongoing efforts to convert its public transit into a well-oiled rail network. 

So far, the results are understandably and predictably mixed. That's being charitable.

We all know that the Confederation Line, which will soon run from Orleans in the east to Crystal Beach in the west, has been a failure from the get-go. It was built poorly and opened too early with trains that were not suited to Ottawa's climate. And many, many details were overlooked. That is likely the shortest way to sum up years of light rail turmoil here. The scariest part is that successive city councils deliberated over the best way to establish a citywide rail network for many years and the process still produced very few positive results. All that time and we still got it wrong in many ways.

I have blogged about the O-Train and its failures many times in the past. In fact, I looked back to the last actual post I completed that was solely about the O-Train and it was in 2020. Since that last post, we have seen news about trains with improper trued axles, tracks that were not built correctly, trains that had to slow down on turns due to the track issues, frequent weather service disruptions and the list goes on. Let's skip ahead to something a bit more positive.

As people in Ottawa know, the north-south Trillium Line, which is now called Line 2, has been operational for a few months and it seems to be operating well, as the diesel trains are much better equipped to deal with Ottawa's temperamental winters. I took this shot in the evening, facing west, from the Bank Street bridge several weeks ago. Most know this as the Walkley diamond, although in truth, it's a half diamond. 

The longer Stadler FLIRT trains are roughly twice as long as the old diesels and they now ply a 19-kilometre route between Bayview Station, on the western edge of the LeBreton Flats, and Limebank Station, on the northern edge of the Riverside South subdivision. Much of this extension of Line 2 follows the right-of-way of the old CP Prescott Subdivison, some of which was still in place up until a few years ago. 

The route has additional stops including Corso Italia (Little Italy), South Keys, Leitrim and Bowesville. The original O-Train line, the old CP Ellwood Subdivision, was the main focus of city council's rail ambitions years ago, when local politicians wanted to build on the success of this line. The thought initially was to extend the north-south line, as the right-of-way was already in place. However, that made too much sense, so that plan was shelved for far too long in favour of an electric east-west line (Confederation Line or Line 1). The rest is a miserable local history.

One bright spot about the new Line 2. Some might recall that, in the original plans, local politicians insisted that a new maintenance facility was going to be built in Bowesville, which despite the name, is largely unoccupied land on the edge of airport lands. At the time, the owners of the Ottawa Central Railway questioned why the city didn't want to make use of existing capacity at Walkley Yard.

Luckily, saner heads prevailed. Looking at Walkley Yard now versus what it was years ago, you would be amazed. The shot below is from the Bank Street bridge in 2017.

 And here's what it looks like now, in 2025. Walkley Yard hasn't been this busy in decades.

The area just south of the Walkley diamond is South Keys station, where Line 2 has a junction with what is now known as Line 4, the spur to the Ottawa International Airport. This line is also being served by smaller diesel trains that only operate between the airport and South Keys.

This shot was taken near the EY Centre, a convention centre near the airport, which has a station stop for people going to a convention. The trains are small compared to what is used on Line 2. The issue that has been raised in a recent opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen is that the airport spur does not provide through service to the end of Line 2 at Bayview. Instead, those wishing to get downtown from the airport need to take the airport O-train to South Keys, then hop onto a Line 2 FLIRT train to Bayview, before transferring again onto an electric train on Line 1. 

This lack of through connections has been heavily criticized, as the process of linking a major source of passengers, in this case the airport, is not seamless. In reality, the Line 1, Line 2 and Line 4 trains all work independently of each other. Not a great option for someone unfamiliar with the city.

Comparisons have been made to the other major airport links in Canada, like Toronto's Union-Pearson Express and Vancouver's Sky Train. The consensus is that Ottawa's rail link falls well short of these other services, particularly since the airport O-Train station is not terribly visible unless you are in the departures level of the airport.

This shot, above, was taken when I was dropping someone off at the airport recently. As you can see, unless you are on the second level of the airport in the departures area, you might be hard-pressed to find the O-Train station. That is the criticism, anyway. I'm sure the station was well thought out and every effort will be made to ensure the station is well promoted within the airport. 

I have yet to ride on the new north-south Line 2, but I look forward to it, just to see the extension of the line into Riverside South. It was behind schedule and over budget, but at least Ottawa can say it has a light rail line that is reliably running. It's more than we can say for Line 1.