MONTREAL — Another rail disaster was narrowly avoided when 45 railcars on a 172-car train derailed July 5 in the heart of a residential neighborhood in Repentigny, a large suburban town just northeast of Montreal.
Eric Renaud, who lives down the street from the derailment, told CTV News he has serious questions “about the safety of the train. The wagons were destroyed. The two or three that I saw were ripped apart.” Some 200 houses near the tracks were evacuated.
In a preliminary report, the Transportation Safety Board found “several deficiencies” on the Canadian National tracks. “Rail anchors were missing or had displaced in a few locations. Furthermore, several ties were skewed and were no longer perpendicular to the rails.” Later on, the report suggests, “Transport Canada may wish to consider verifying the integrity of the track” on the whole subdivision, as similar problems were found by inspectors elsewhere.
Despite the risks found, freight transportation was up and running just three days later. Train speed was reduced, but work continued. “Transport Canada has completed its post-repair inspections, CN has completed its internal review of the causes and implications of the occurrence, spokesperson Hicham Ayoun said. But he admitted these repairs haven’t been inspected.
“Events like this remind us why we will never stop fighting for stronger rail safety, for workers and for the communities our railways run through,” Francois Laporte, president of Teamsters Canada, which organizes operating crews on Canada’s railroads, said after the derailment.
Lac-Megantic rail disaster left 47 dead
“It’s worrying,” Viviane Charron, who also lives near where the train derailed, told CTV. “It makes me think about what happened at Lac-Megantic.” In fact, the day after the Repentigny derailment marked the 13-year anniversary of the 2013 rail disaster in Quebec, where a runaway 72-car oil train with no crew derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and leveling the city’s downtown.
“It makes us think if it could happen here and there could be serious consequences” she said.
After years of efforts by area residents to find a way to prevent further disasters, a rail bypass around Lac-Megantic was just approved by the federal government.
During a 2019 eight-day strike by CN rail conductors for rail safety one of their most popular slogans was “No more Lac-Megantics!”
In another example of the rail bosses’ disdain for workers’ lives, a video went viral here showing a CN train conductor and an engineer stuck in their engine in northern Ontario July 13 while wildfires raged around them.
You can see the workers requesting to be evacuated while the engine is engulfed in flames.
“This incident should never have happened,” Paul Boucher, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference president, told the press. “CN should never have sent a train down those lines. The company knows exactly how bad the situation is in that region. That fire has been raging for five weeks.”
“Our members should never have to drive through a wall of flames to move freight,” Laporte said. “Railway workers keep this country’s economy moving, but no shipment is worth a human life.”
Safety is at the center of what rail workers are fighting for in Canada, the U.S. and around the world.
Philippe Tessier is a member of the Teamsters union.