ION service disruption in Kitchener due to collision

For the second time in less than a week, an ION service disruption has been announced.

Grand River Transit posted to social media shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday that ION trains are not running between the Grand River Hospital and Kitchener Market stations due to a technical issue.

The same tweet was sent out Thursday morning.

8:40 AM : ION trains are not running between Grand River Hospital Station and Kitchener Market Station due to a technical issue.Service between Kitchener Market and Borden is using only one track in both directions. You may need … (see https://t.co/jFObWR7aN9 for details)

— GRT Service Alerts (@AlertsGRT) June 1, 2023

ION service between the Kitchener Market and Borden Avenue has also been reduced to one track in both directions, so riders may need to board trains on the opposite platform.

A spokesperson with Waterloo Regional Police confirmed to CityNews Kitchener that the disruption related to a single-vehicle collision in downtown Kitchener that damaged an overpass.

The crash involved a truck that had its boom raised. Photos showed the underside of a building overpass torn up.

No one was injured and according to police, a structural engineer determined there was no structural damage.

The driver of the truck was charged with careless driving. Charles Street was closed between Water Street and Gaukel Street for the clean-up.

The trains were back and running shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday.

8:04 PM : The ION light rail service disruption between Grand River Hospital Station and Borden Station has ended. Light rail service will return to the regular schedule shortly.

— GRT Service Alerts (@AlertsGRT) June 2, 2023

Doug Spooner is the director of transit services at Grand River Transit and he said in an interview with CityNews Kitchener that there is no known estimated reopening time.

“The overpass damage is being worked on right now by the building owner,” said Spooner, “we turned off the LRT overhead power to support that work being done safely and we will resume service as soon as it’s deemed safe and there’s no threat to adjacent infrastructure to the track.”

Spooner had no damage estimate to the building.

This all comes after a technical issue led to an ION service disruption through Waterloo on Friday, which was then extended through part of Kitchener following a collision involving LRT.

“Last Friday, May 26 [in the] morning disruption was due to theft of electrical components. Through the day, we also had a vehicle collision with the train. So, those are uncontrollable for us at GRT and we react with bus replacement service,” he said.

Spooner said that when service starts in the morning, they inspect the trains and track to ensure everything is safe to run the ION trains.

“We will not run an unsafe train,” said Spooner, “if we notice any problem, we immediately investigate. In the case of the stolen electrical components, that required us to do a repair at the time.”

Spooner recognized the frustration of customers for the increased amount of service disruptions recently.

“I would remind our customers to check ongoing platform announcements and any of our web info or on Twitter. We do commit to continuing to inform them of what’s going on and understand that there was some frustration with the incident coding. We’re trying to get those incidents out quickly so we’ll take a look at that,” said Spooner.

Spooner added that our LRT service has been running above 98 per cent reliability.

“I go back to the nature of interruptions, our buses we can often redirect and move. Our trains run on a controlled corridor and it’s difficult to turn them and it’s difficult to store them. What we’ve learned is the need to have those bus replacement services in place quickly, but again, we will not run an unsafe train. When we hit those reliability numbers, that’s where we are trying to stay and that’s the number that we’re focused on improving.”

Water St and Charles’s is the issue. The bridge running across the street at location is partially damaged and there are heavy debris on the road. Road also closed. pic.twitter.com/chcu415d14

— Nadia (@Nada_Dj) May 31, 2023

10:45 AM : ION trains are not running between Grand River Hospital Station and Kitchener Market Station due to a technical issue.Service between Kitchener Market and Borden is using only one track in both directions. You may need … (see https://t.co/jFObWR7aN9 for details)

— GRT Service Alerts (@AlertsGRT) May 31, 2023