Ottawa LRT

[Canard]

It’s well documented all over (Wiki is a good start) and OT for this thread, but in a nutshell the system was to be LRT. They built the turnaround loop at Kennedy to handle the turning radii that the CLRV’s could handle. The Province needed a showcase for their new ICTS system, and convinced the TTC to change technologies by paying for the difference.

The turnaround loop was too tight for the ICTS vehicles and they would occasionally derail. This resulted in a reconfiguration of the Kennedy terminus - which has a curve right after the station, so a full crossover was out. This meant there could only be a single track, with boarding/exiting possible on both sides of the train with a platform extension (the original config had trains stop at an exit platform, run through the turnaround loop, and board on the opposite side while the next train arrived).

Since there wasn’t time to get a train in and out fast enough, they had to halve the headways. Since that resulted in excess vehicles they could convert them to four-car trains.

But the system was meant to accommodate four car trains at the super short headways... which it could now never do, due to the config at Kennedy.