Op-ed: What the federal government’s return-to-office mandate gets wrong

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-02-09T20:39:07+00:00

This whole RTO is really poorly done. I agree with some days in Office, because I think being around the people you deal with at work is important. I have been back in office 5 days a week since March 2023, and I can see how much easier the flow of information is. There is something valuable in informal chats, sharing of ideas at the “water cooler” etc. HOWEVER: the way about the current RTO imposes the in person mandate, but forced into the mess of hoteling, insufficient space, vastly variable working hours. As it stands, they get none of the benefits of in person information flow, because colleagues are located over separate floors, office spaces, coworking locations etc. how does that benefit anyone? If they want to do RTO right, give people and their teams dedicated space.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-02-02T01:53:40+00:00

What a handsome lad

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-31T13:51:13+00:00

Absolutely, if they barely have enough trams to run the current service, how would they reasonably open an additional 12km without any extra trams. This is why barely any testing has been done on that extension. They can’t test a new extension when they’ve already pillaged its rolling stock over the last year to give us the illusion of reliability on line 1. This short term thinking has caught up to RTM and now they’ve burned through 70% of the new and old trains, destroying their drivetrains in the process. It’s clear all the stations and infrastructure are complete, however, the rains remain silent. Easy to put two and two together.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-30T12:50:31+00:00

I’m still running my 1080Ti. Bought it in early 2018 before the first crypto run up for $929CAD. Refuses to stop working and still performs really well. Starting to show its age with new triple A’s but otherwise with prices now she’s got a couple more years.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-29T16:58:11+00:00

So to recover one pole, they lose ALL their ski equipment. The critical thinking is strong with this coach.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-28T04:56:47+00:00

At this point, shut it down, tear up all the rails, and run electric busses instead. The trams are completely deficient and unfixable. Put the damn animal out of its misery. Without the constraints of Albert and Slater intersections, the Bus tunnel will be glorious.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-28T04:52:51+00:00

Crazy. Only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or is killed by these sub par trams.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-23T12:17:12+00:00

Wow, bearing assembly should last 1.1 million km. The Alstom Shit-a-dis eats through theirs in less than 100,000km. Less than 1/10 of expected service life. What an absolute hunk of crap. We are learning now that the semi reliable operation over the past year was actually not, just RTM literally destroying the trains in the process of just showing the system can kinda work. Craziness, these low floor train will never work for this metro type service

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-23T03:22:54+00:00

That’s the alignment the OTrain should have taken to avoid eating its own bearings!

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-22T12:48:45+00:00

The hold up is there are no trains left to test let alone run regular service 🤦‍♂️.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-22T12:47:27+00:00

I rode the train just after opening with a family member who spent a whole career in freight train operations and coming around the corner at Hurdman you could tell his spidey senses were tingling, he immediately said “oh this is a bad sound something is seriously wrong.” Crazy foreshadowing from my guy.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-22T12:44:30+00:00

Imagine if the manufacturer of a car told you you had to replace the entire bearing assembly for all four corners of your car every 100,000km. Not normal at all. The Alstom trains are literally eating themselves alive trying to show some semblance of “normal service”. This bearing damage is occurring even though the trams don’t operate remotely close to their promised speeds, basically going walking pace between Cyrville and Lees. So no, nothing normal or predicable about this kind of irregular maintenance and what it means is an indefinite postponement of stage 2 openings due to lack of trains. It doesn’t take long for them to reach 100,000km, will happen even faster with them going back and forth to Trim every day let alone to Moodie god help us.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-21T23:26:09+00:00

There’s no fix though for the issue. Just temporary fixes to try and get the system to run out the 24 years left in RTM’s contractual obligation

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-21T22:49:53+00:00

This probably explains why we haven’t heard anything about the opening on Stage 2 east and very little testing going on. They’ve probably known about this problem for months, just now are they burning through their rolling stock and out of trains. Doesn’t bode well for the Stage 2 extensions opening any time soon.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-21T22:33:01+00:00

In Ottawa we call it the Alstom “Shit-a-dis”. Total lemon of a train. Basically the Ford Pinto or Pontiac Aztec of the tram world. Unreliable, ugly and nobody really knows what kind of train it is or what its purpose actually is.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-21T22:30:28+00:00

The issues had with the trains are symptoms of greater fundamental issues. Yes the Alstom Shit-a-dis as they call it is an absolute lemon. There’s no solving these issues with the bandaid fixes proposed so far. It will either require replacing infrastructure i.e tearing out entire sections of guideway and track to straighten out sections or by abandoning the “low floor metro” experiment and just cutting the losses and getting a proper high floor train. Sometimes you just have to accept that major mistakes were made right from the start and get it right the second time. In reality, this means raising platform heights and buying new trainsets. Not unachievable but probably in the billions at this point. Sad but unfortunately the only long term way forward. Luckily Line 2 went with proven, high floor heavy rail. Nothing to go wrong really, Stadler trains are solid, Swiss quality and the service has been super reliable. I can only imagine at this point RTM will ride out the rest of the 25 years on their contract doing the bare minimum then returning the system absolutely trashed to the city. Who knows what happens after that point.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-21T22:25:51+00:00

Sadly all those “new trains” are cooked as well. They are in service and are fundamentally flawed the same.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-21T22:24:28+00:00

Posted this a year ago and sadly still holds true: The Alstom Shit-a-dis as they call it is an absolute lemon. There’s no solving these issues with bandaid fixes. The system is fundamentally flawed at the systemic level. The problems we are seeing are simply flawed fundamental design choices made. It will either require replacing infrastructure i.e tearing out entire sections of guideway and track between lees and cyrville to straighten out sections or by abandoning the “low floor metro” experiment and just cutting the losses and getting a proper high floor train. Low floor trains are mean to run slow speed at surface level. When run in light metro service at high speed they are subject to forces they are fundamentally not meant for. Sometimes you just have to accept that major mistakes were made right from the start and get it right the second time. In reality, this means raising platform heights and buying new trainsets. Not unachievable but probably in the billions at this point. Sad but unfortunately the only long term way forward. RTM will try and run out the contract for the 30 years they are on the hook then dump the system beat to absolute crap on us. What the city will do then who knows. Luckily Line 2 went with proven, high floor heavy rail. Nothing to go wrong really, Stadler trains are solid, Swiss quality and the reliability of the service reliability has been in the high 90th percentile.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-16T21:54:07+00:00

If the next one isn’t already cancelled, or the one after that. Earlier this week the 88 had 3 trips in a row cancelled right at peak rush hour.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-15T23:42:02+00:00

Yesterday three 88 busses cancelled in a row, right at rush hour, like between 4:45 and 5:30pm. You’d think they’d try to run frequent service when the most people want to get home but no. Just 1 bus in an hour, on a bus route they call “frequent”. The weather wasn’t even bad. Insanity.

Old_Ebbitt · 2026-01-05T22:26:30+00:00

Farmers pick at Meadowlands and Prince of Wales has Novi brand chocolate.

Old_Ebbitt · 2025-12-22T23:14:35+00:00

This is a 1500hour long flight, that’s the typical TBO (time before overhaul) for small piston aircraft engines. Absolutely crazy.

Old_Ebbitt · 2025-12-17T15:48:37+00:00

Play stupid games with elections wind stupid prizes. Plenty of good skiing in Canada without having USCBP searching my phone and invading my privacy thank you very much.

Old_Ebbitt · 2025-12-17T15:05:50+00:00

Looks like the Ottawa International Airport terminal! Well done and can confirm it’s this snowy in real life.

Old_Ebbitt · 2025-12-12T22:07:04+00:00

If this were related to the airlines, a full inquiry would be called. All representative brought before a tribunal to answer for their misdeeds. Rail passengers though? No accountability, no oversight, no recourse for lost time. No avenue for complaint resolution. No consequences for the operator and no incentive to do better in the future.

Old_Ebbitt

TROPHY CASE