Vol. 79/No. 37      October 19, 2015

Sécu-Rail is part of the Citizens’ Coalition and Groups Committed to Rail Safety that’s organizing the march demanding the Lac-Mégantic City Council seek a court injunction to bar the Central Maine and Quebec Railway from transporting dangerous goods through the town until it repairs its unsafe tracks. Sécu-Rail activists have provided photographic documentation of the dangerous conditions on the tracks.

In 2013 Lac-Mégantic was the scene of a catastrophic Montreal, Maine and Atlantic oil train derailment, explosion and fire that killed 47 people and wiped out the downtown. Federal prosecutors have tried to pin the blame on Tom Harding, the locomotive engineer and only “crew” on the train, and train controller Richard Labrie. Both workers, who are members of Local 1976 of the United Steelworkers union, face possible life in prison on 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death, as does former company official Jean Demaître.

The government and rail bosses claim Harding didn’t set enough handbrakes. But, as was company policy, he left the engine running and the air brakes engaged. Because of poor company maintenance a fire broke out on the engine. The fire crew and a Montreal, Maine and Atlantic representative, who was sent to the scene, then shut the engine down. When Harding was called by the railroad and told of the fire, he volunteered to return to the train, but was told he shouldn’t worry about it, they had someone else there. Later, when the air brakes bled out, the train rolled into Lac-Mégantic and derailed.

“It was not the fault of the workers,” said Lachapelle. “It was the fault of the government and the company. In fact, the federal government was most responsible. It let the MMA run its trains with a crew of one on unsafe tracks.”

A year before the disaster, Transport Canada approved the request of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic bosses to slash train crews to one person as a cost-cutting measure to boost profits.

“The companies and the government overlook safety for profits,” a Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive engineer and officer of the Teamsters Rail Conference who declined to use his name told the Militant Oct. 1. “I know what it’s like. I could have been in the same situation as Tom Harding. We need to put up a fight against the rail companies and the government for safety.”

The Citizens’ Coalition is now locked in a fight not only with Transport Canada and the Central Maine and Quebec Railway, but also with Lac-Mégantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche and the City Council, who have buckled to pressure from local businesses, like the giant Tafisa Canada Inc. particle board plant in town, Lachapelle said. The railway is vital for forest industry bosses in Quebec and Maine.

Central Maine and Quebec, which is run by a U.S. hedge fund that bought out bankrupt Montreal, Maine and Atlantic, may start running oil trains through the town again as early as January. Oil trains were the most profitable cargo the railway carried, subsidizing its lumber and other traffic.

On Sept. 26 the convention of the Union of Quebec Municipalities, representing 300 Quebec towns and cities, endorsed a resolution submitted by the City Council in Nantes placing blame for the disaster on the government and railway bosses. The town is located seven miles uphill from Lac-Mégantic where the train was parked before it rolled and exploded.

“Mayor Roy-Laroche, who is not running in the next municipal election and was attending her final council meeting, rejected all the demands of the coalition before a large audience of her supporters,” Lachapelle said. “She said she had seen a confidential letter from Transport Canada to CMQR President John Giles declaring the tracks safe and argued it was an ‘economic imperative’ to reject the demands of the Citizens’ Coalition for the immediate repair of the tracks and for independent studies of their condition and weight-bearing capacity. She argued that there is no emergency and that instead the city should concentrate on a longer-range effort to get the federal government to build a rail bypass around Lac-Mégantic.”

Broad support for the fight

Join the Oct. 11 demonstration at the Lac-Mégantic Sports Centre at 12:30 p.m. Afterwards, protesters plan to participate in an all-candidates federal election meeting at the Sports Centre to continue to press their demands.