Commissioning of the western and northern branches of the REM postponed

The Deux-Montagnes and Anse-à-l’Orme antennas of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), which were to be delivered at the end of 2024, are postponed to 2025 due to the “highly complex” work underway in the Mont-Tunnel. Royal. Dynamic tests will nevertheless be launched on these sections within a few weeks.

This was announced on Wednesday by CDPQ Infra, the subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec which manages light rail. In a press release published Wednesday, the organization indicates that its teams “have increased efforts to optimize deadlines”, but that “despite everything, highly complex work to modernize the Mont-Royal tunnel must continue”.

Result: the tests of this segment “will not be able to begin for the opening initially planned for the end of 2024 and will postpone the commissioning for the Deux-Montagnes and Anse-à-l’Orme antenna”, confirms the Caisse, without however move further forward on a new, more precise timetable.

According to information from Radio-Canada, which first reported the news on Wednesday, commissioning is also not planned for the first months of 2025. We must therefore a priori expect a delay of several months , or even almost a year.

As for the route to connect the airport to the city center, delivery is still scheduled for 2027 only, with construction work on the station first having to take place until 2026. No additional details were given to this subject.

A neuralgic tunnel

As of today, the REM project office says it has “completed all of the infrastructure” in the Mont-Royal tunnel, where explosives discovered during construction in 2020 had caused a lot of delay. The work is now at the installation stage of the systems for operating the train.

So far, 10 kilometers of track have been upgraded and a 5.2 kilometer retaining wall has been reconstructed. Approximately 400 meters of the tunnel were also rehabilitated, while excavation work was completed at Édouard-Montpetit and McGill stations. The same goes for ventilation systems. However, terminals, sensors and 600 kilometers of electrical cables still need to be installed.

“Around a hundred workers take turns day and night, 7 days a week, to maintain the pace of work in the tunnel,” assures CDPQ Infra.

Dynamic tests on the cars can begin once this work is completed, which should be done “in the coming weeks on the segment between Deux-Montagnes and Sainte-Dorothée stations,” according to the Caisse de dépôt. The tests will then continue gradually on the Anse-à-l’Orme antenna, during the summer season.

Tests will also have to take place to test the “integration of the network under construction” with that which is already in service, namely the antenna inaugurated last July between the South Shore and Montreal.

Let us remember, however, that the first trains ran “at low speed” at the end of February on the future Deux-Montagnes antenna, between the Saint-Eustache maintenance center and the future Sainte-Dorothée station. However, these were only preliminary tests.

According to a document from the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) revealed by The Press last week, the REM currently presents an overall deficit of 26 million. With total revenues of around 57 million and an overall cost of 83.4 million, CDPQ Infra’s new light rail covers around 68% of its costs.