LRT delays caused by 'significant damage' to overhead wiring

A wiring issue is to blame for shutting down the LRT system Wednesday night.

City officials promise to have up and running by 6 p.m. Thursday. However replacement buses were still being used at 9 p.m.

Transit branch manager Ken Koropeski said there's extensive damage to the overhead wiring on the southbound track, between 95th Street and Churchill Station.

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The wires provide power to the trains. Koropeski called the damage a "mechanical issue" and said the cause is under investigation. He said vandalism is not to blame.

"There's been some damage to some of the support that hold the wires up and some of the wiring did come down," he said.

He said the damage has nothing to do with the Metro Line.

The incident caused the city to completely shut down the LRT system at 9:40 pm on Wednesday night, leaving Oilers fans stranded at the Stadium LRT system.

Crews worked through the night and most of the next day to fix the "substantial damage," Koropeski said.

The Capital Line could only run trains at half frequency during the morning commute, while the Metro Line ran only from NAIT to the McEwan station while repairs were underway.

The city used buses to try to shuttle passengers around during the reduced service.

The mayor criticized the transit department's handling of the outage. He said he was frustrated to hear riders did not get adequate information about the delays.

Korospeski said his staff will review what went wrong to make sure they handle things better in the future.

"What we need to do is a debrief on what happened in this case ... and if there were issues we didn't follow or issues we can improve on we'll make sure that we build that in," he said.