There was another equipment-related disruption of LRT service in Ottawa on Friday evening.

A memo to the mayor and members of city council from Renée Amilcar, the general manager of the transit services department, said an arm supporting the wire in the Overhead Catenary System — it’s called a parafil — broke near Lees Station.

Trains were able to come to a safe stop at the station, the memo said, adding that other riders on a train near Lees Station were able to safely exit the train to make their way back to the platform.

R1 replacement bus service ran for approximately one hour between St-Laurent and Rideau stations, while trains continued to operate from Tunney’s Pasture to uOttawa Station in the west and from Blair to Tremblay stations in the east.

Eventually trains resumed operations on the full LRT system from Tunney’s Pasture to Blair, but they were using just one track — normally the eastbound line — at Hurdman, Lees and uOttawa stations for the rest of the evening.

Rideau Transit Maintenance was expected to fix the parafil overnight, when the LRT does not operate, Amilcar’s memo said, adding it was anticipated that repairs would be completed in time for service from all platforms at the start of operations on Saturday morning.

“We want to reassure customers that the issue of repeated problems with the parafils is of utmost concern to OC Transpo,” the memo said. “The parafils have undergone inspections and added protection to address previous failure occurrences. We are actively seeking alternatives to this product for Line 1. The Stage 2 extensions of the O-Train are designed with a different OCS support configuration that does not include parafils.”