Exo’s new Chinese commuter trains are expected to finally enter service next Tuesday, it has been learned The Press. They will first be there for a few days, before being withdrawn for two weeks due to work on the Saint-Jérôme line, but they will return for good to the rails in mid-July.
An official announcement is planned on this subject on Friday, confirmed certain sources not yet authorized to speak publicly about it. The information was later corroborated by communications from exo. It will be announced that the twenty trains already received and available will run according to the usual schedule on the Saint-Jérôme line starting next Tuesday, upon returning from the National Day long weekend.
Users will therefore be able to borrow them from next week, but only for four days. On June 28, the trains will have to be withdrawn from service due to work to take place on the line. Behind the scenes, we simply explain that we do not want to damage the trains during the work.
At the end of this work, scheduled for July 15, the trains will definitively return to service. They will run exclusively for the moment on the Saint-Jérôme line, but it could be possible to see them elsewhere later.
“For the moment, we have not chosen the second line which could be equipped with it, but it will be used to replace existing trains which must be upgraded. On other lines, we will therefore be able to remove trains to replace them with our new ones,” mentioned the general director of exo, Sylvain Yelle.
A long saga
The exo carrier began receiving these trains equipped with a state-of-the-art communication system a little over two years ago, but their arrival on the ground took much longer than expected due to technical problems, as we previously reported.
These trains are supposed to be better lit and, above all, more comfortable for passengers. “There is a lot of work that has been done at the design level, both at the ergonomic level and the layout of the equipment in the control console which promotes better familiarization for drivers. […] It will have an impact on the customer experience,” assured the director of rolling stock maintenance, Gaétan Turcotte, in a promotional video broadcast on social networks on Tuesday.
So far, the carrier has received 24 cars from Beijing-based state-owned CRRC and is expecting 20 more of the same in the coming weeks. The bill reaches some 200 million dollars. Initially, the cars were to be put into service from June 2019, but delays have increased.
Even more recently, at the time of the first deliveries, in February 2022, exo indicated that commissioning would begin “at the beginning of 2023”, after a year of integration. The deadline was then regularly postponed. According to our information, the teams of experts have notably detected communication problems between the cars which have now been resolved.
In recent months, the trains have undergone several qualification, routine and commissioning tests, including several so-called “climatic” analyses. At times, the trains were even subjected to simulated temperatures ranging from -30 to 40˚C to prepare them for extreme conditions.
With Philippe Teisceira-Lessard, The Press