Transpo and RTM, the main contractor, acknowledged the pain of passengers to media Thursday, but also said they believe better times are coming.
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LRT sees a record-low six working trains amidst an array of unrelated failures in 24 hours – Ottawa Citizen
Six trains running. Out of 17.
When light rail service began to fall apart Wednesday night, it wasn’t the weather’s fault. Instead, one mechanical failure after another knocked train after train out of service, reaching a record low of six working trains out of the promised 13 (and total of 17) by late Thursday morning.
And it stayed at six trains into the afternoon peak period. Citizen transit commissioner Sarah Wright-Gilbert said a seventh train “died” without reaching the main line. (A seventh did launch later in the afternoon.)
Transpo and RTM, the main contractor, acknowledged the pain of passengers to media Thursday, but also said they believe better times are coming.
Transpo general manager John Manconi talked repeatedly about the goal of “service, service, service.”
RTM president Peter Lauch told reporters: “We’re moving forward.”
Underlying that optimism was a messy series of failures overnight that saw passengers escorted along the tracks from three dead trains — including one through the tunnel downtown.
Here’s how the damage stacked up.
It began with a new source of trouble. The overhead power line for the electric trains is held up by a series of poles, and each pole has an arm sticking out with a cable dangling from it, like a fishing rod and fishing line. The power wire hangs from that.
East of St. Laurent, an operator noticed during the afternoon that a cable holding the power line was broken. The operator stopped. (Lauch says a component of this support system “looked like it had some pitting and some corrosion,” but the cause is still under investigation.)
With these support arms, “we’re finding that there is some corrosion on them,” especially where they stand beside sections of highway and get a lot of salty road spray, he said.
As RTM assessed that, another train became immobilized east of Tremblay, “and this was related to the earlier wire damage,” Transpo says. Off walked the passengers, in came the R1 buses to replace all train service in the east end.
Then a third train lost power at uOttawa Station at 7:20 p.m., forcing all trains to share a single track past that area and slowing service. A fourth train suffered a door problem that took it out of service at about 8:45 p.m. More delay.
Full service was finally restored with a reduced number of trains after midnight.
Thursday began with nine trains in service. (Transpo: “Vehicle availability was challenged.”) But a power issue knocked out one train before 6 a.m. and another by 6:45 a.m. That left seven.
Another train broke down just before the 11 a.m. media session; causes weren’t immediately known.
And then there were six. And none of the damage was caused by the storm.
Four of the breakdowns were the familiar “power issues.” This is centred on the inductors, the rooftop devices that take power from the overhead lines and channel it into the train. Inductors have been suffering from dirt and salt which cause arcing, and sometimes makes the circuit breakers shut down power to a train. When this happens, a train must be taken out of service for inspection.
In one case Thursday, passengers had to walk about 15 metres through the tunnel outside Rideau Station, with escorts.
Paramedics had to help one passenger evacuated from a train near Tremblay on Wednesday night when she had a panic attack.
Related
Lauch said RTM is gradually toughening up trains by putting covers on inductors to keep out dirt and salt from road spray, and so far it has performed this on 19 of the 34 cars, meaning there are enough upgrades for eight complete trains of two cars each. “Right now as we’re speaking, they are being put on six more” cars. “Another eight to 10 days and they should all be done.”
He added: “They are good vehicles.”
Transpo has responded to the shortage of trains by extending S1 and R1 bus service. The homeward-bound S1 service started at 1 p.m. and R1 buses were scheduled to run parallel to the trains all through Thursday, but Transpo said service “will be fragile.”
Wright-Gilbert said in a radio interview that the news conference was “the regular refrain from RTM” that “we’re looking into it,” but the root causes still have not been found.
“These trains are cheap (and) they are not designed for our climate,” she said. “In my experience, the cheapest option is not always the best option and anyone who orders from Amazon could tell you that that’s true.”
“I haven’t been satisfied with RTG/RTM since they started speaking publicly … RTM is not doing their job. There’s no other way to say this; they’re not doing their job.”
Catherine McKenney from Somerset ward said RTM continues “to fail to deliver anything close” to proper service.
Coun. Shawn Menard from Capital ward criticized the public-private partnership as a failure.
More to come.
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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X:
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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