Vol. 80/No. 28 August 1, 2016
Protest 3 years after Quebec disaster: ‘Reroute trains!’
“The prime minister [Justin Trudeau] has to come and announce as soon as possible the construction of the bypass track and, in the meantime, he needs to do something to repair the railroad, which is in a sorry state,” said Robert Bellefleur, spokesperson for the Citizens and Groups Coalition for Rail Safety, which organized the protest.
“The MMA [now bankrupt Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway] destroyed our town,” coalition activist Richard Poirier told the crowd. “But Transport Canada [the government agency that oversees rail transport] knew that the MMA was unsafe.”
The destroyed area here remains a fenced-off wasteland. Freight trains from Central Maine and Quebec Railway, carrying hazardous cargo like propane and hydrochloric acid, continue to roll down the very tracks where the disaster occurred. At some point oil trains, which keep Central Maine and Quebec profitable, are due to start running again.
“The criminals responsible for this disaster should be prosecuted and driven out of the rail industry,” said Fritz Edler, a retired Washington, D.C., Amtrak locomotive engineer, speaking for Railroad Workers United. “Today men whose policies determined what happened here are still running railways. And the government is scapegoating Tom Harding and Richard Labrie. The charges against them should be dropped.”
Harding, the locomotive engineer of the runaway train in 2013, and Labrie, the train controller during the disaster, face frame-up charges of 47 counts of criminal negligence and could face life in prison if convicted. Both are members of United Steelworkers Local 1976. Their trial will likely begin in 2017. Montreal, Maine and Atlantic was running the train with a one man crew.
“The most notable omission in the TSB report was that the existence of a single train operator was not listed as a cause of the accident,” said Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, referring to a Transportation Safety Board report after the disaster. “It was listed several times as a cause in draft versions of the TSB report. I’ve seen these drafts. Why was it erased?”
Rail safety across the country continues to deteriorate. Transportation Safety Board Chairperson Kathy Fox told the Globe and Mail in an interview published May 29 that 2015 saw the highest number of runaway trains in years — 42 incidents, up from 30 in 2014 and well above the five-year average of 36 per year. Fox criticized Transport Canada for fully implementing only one of five safety recommendations coming out of its investigation of the Lac-Mégantic tragedy.
“I don’t agree with having one engineer on the train. One person! And I don’t think it’s right to blame the workers for what happened,” retired worker Patricia Marcoux said at the march.
“Harding is not responsible for the disaster. He did his job. We should get a petition to support him and get everyone to sign it,” said Lac-Mégantic resident André Jacques.
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