First day of REM service and first delays

The new REM between Montreal and the South Shore was officially in service starting at 5:30 a.m. on Monday.

Barely a few hours later, a service interruption was already slowing down the network in the middle of rush hour.

At 8 a.m. REM riders were informed that a service interruption between Panama and Central Station was taking place and that the REM would only be available between Brossard and Panama. An analysis of the cause was in progress.

“People were actually laughing at some point when they were making the announcements. It’s just disappointing rather than, you know, upsetting, you know, you would expect it to work,” said Manuel.

“Two minutes into the ride, the train just wasn’t slowing down until it finally stopped. When I looked up, I saw that there was another train in front of us. And then they announced that there was some sort of outage that it was only going to last 20 minutes, but it lasted about 45 minutes.”

Bus shuttles transporting commuters between Panama and downtown’s Central Station were quickly deployed while the operational glitch was handled.

“It’s kind of situation that we said could occur here because we are in the ramp up situation,” explained Jean Vincent Lacroix, Spokesperson for REM.

“It was a fast learning curve for them this morning. So I understand that some of them are not happy at all.”

REM service was interrupted from about 8:00 a.m. to about 9:15 a.m. before it resumed again.

26 stations over 67 kilometres when completed

On Saturday and Sunday, tens of thousands of people used the new light rail system which was open to the public free of charge.

Five REM stations are now open, connecting Central Station, in downtown Montreal, and the Brossard station.

Bus transport on the Samuel-de-Champlain bridge has been abandoned, and several routes on the South Shore have been reorganized so that buses converge at REM stations.

Now this situation is occurring. We asked people and we want them to be as comprehensive as they can,” said Jean Vincent.

Eventually, the network will include 26 stations that will extend over 67 kilometers. This is the biggest development of public transit in Montreal since the construction of the metro in the 1960s.

The trip between Montreal and Brossard takes 18 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes less than driving during rush hours.

REM cars will operate every day, 20 hours a day, and will be connected to three main lines of the Montreal metro.

“I will try to probably aim for earlier and hopefully this just this was just, you know, bad luck. I really hope that it works. You know, I a lot of people are expecting it to work fine and I’m not discouraged, but a little bit disappointed,” said Manuel.

Three other REM routes are still under construction, including lines to the western and northern suburbs of Montreal, which should be inaugurated towards the end of 2024, and an airport link, in Dorval, which will not be operational before 2027.

– With files from The Canadian Press