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He said when Edmonton officials didn’t trust Thales’ safety case to put the line in service, the company spent more than one year waiting for a second company to complete a review.

“That external consultant did an absolute deep dive into our records, spent months and months going through the details, and concluded that Thales’ safety case was valid,” said Beckley.

That was “a great redemption for Thales. Unfortunately, it chewed up over a year-plus of project time.”

After the safety case was accepted, Edmonton finally let trains speed up and the company turned its full attention to Plan A: using new technology in the tunnel to restore frequency on the original Capital Line.

City council had threatened to terminate the Thales contract in December after nearly seven years’ worth of work. It gave a “notice of default” on May 1. But Thales has one more chance to make things work.

The company submitted a new schedule for review Monday and, on Friday, officials were evaluating it.

Beckley said he can’t reveal deadlines in the new schedule until the city accepts it because testing must be approved by Edmonton Transit.

“We’re extremely close,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of testing in the last few months with the full co-operation of the city.”

Photo by Shaughn Butts / Postmedia

Steep learning curve

Beckley said the learning curve on this technology is steep because it’s very different from the signalling system Edmonton is used to. It’s like jumping straight to using a bank card rather than cash — there’s a feeling of unease.