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Part of the REM network was down for nearly two hours after a truck struck a viaduct near the newly inaugurated Bois-Franc station in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough Tuesday morning.
The incident happened on the second day of service on the REM’s new Deux-Montagnes branch and a day after a group of people was stuck in an elevator at the REM’s deepest station, Édouard-Montpetit.
Just before 7 a.m. Tuesday, a 53-foot truck got caught on the underside of the viaduct at Henri-Bourrassa and Marcel-Laurin boulevards, causing a small piece to detach from the structure, according to Montreal police.
Circulation under the viaduct wasn’t interrupted but the incident halted REM service running just above.
Service resumed shortly after between Deux-Montagnes and Bois-Franc stations and between Brossard and Côte-de-Liesse stations. Shuttle buses were put in place between Bois-Franc and Côte-de-Liesse.
Service was restored across the entire network shortly before 9 a.m.
Additionally, a Cloudflare outage has taken down the REM’s website and affected the social media platform X for part of the morning where the REM posts its status updates.
Elevator woes
On Monday, a group of about 20 people was trapped in a malfunctioning elevator at the Édouard-Montpetit station, which lies 72 metres underground — the deepest station in Canada.
The group was stuck for just over an hour inside one of the station’s five elevators, according to commuter Hyacinthe Raimbault.
He said there was some confusion between the control centre and the group when they asked for help.
“They asked us to push a red button which said ‘stop,’ according to their procedure, but there is no red button or any button that says ‘stop’ in the cabin,” he said, adding that the agent on the line maintained communication throughout the event and helped keep the cabin calm.
Firefighters managed to free the group of commuters stuck in the malfunctioning elevator a little over an hour after the ordeal began. (Submitted by Hyacinthe Raimbault)
“I think it was a lot of growing pains and there are probably some procedures that are going to be streamlined because I feel it probably shouldn’t take that long, but overall it ended well.”
The REM says it is looking into the problem to try to prevent it from happening again.
The REM’s Deux-Montagnes branch was inaugurated last Friday in the presence of elected officials, including Prime Minister Mark Carney, Quebec Premier François Legault and Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada.
After offering free rides over the weekend, the REM officially launched service on the new line Monday.