Vol. 77/No. 28      July 22, 2013

Some 30 buildings were wiped out and more than 1,500 of the town’s 6,000 residents have been evacuated from the area, which is 157 miles east of Montreal, close to the Maine border.

Oil spilling into the Chaudière River could affect water consumption as far as Quebec City, 115 miles north, and the St. Lawrence River eastward from there.

The 72 oil tanker car train, owned by Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway whose parent company is Rail World Inc., was initially secured and braked by its lone engineer at Nantes, about seven miles uphill from Lac-Mégantic. As per company regulations, the engineer left the locomotive running to get sleep at a nearby hotel.

At about 11:30 p.m. firefighters were called by MMA employees to put out a small fire in one of the five locomotives. They left when told by MMA that the train was OK and secured. Around 1 a.m. the unmanned train began to roll towards the town, gathering speed until it jumped the tracks.

MMA has a high accident rate, far higher than even the U.S. average, the Wall Street Journal reported July 8.

In 1991 the U.S. National Transportation and Safety Board stated in a report that the DOT-111 oil tanker cars that made up the 72 car train are “not adequate to resist the shock of a derailment.” It took 20 years for the Canadian federal government to demand that transporters use tanker cars with thicker steel walls when they renew their fleets, but Ottawa has permitted the companies to keep the old models in service.

For many years rail unions in North America have pointed to the bosses’ cutbacks in the size of train staffs as a safety issue for rail workers and communities through which freight trains pass each day.

In 2012 Ottawa gave MMA permission to use one-person crews, which allow the company to run more frequent trains with higher profit margins.
 
 
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