Critical changes needed to improve Canada’s rail system
Posted January 23, 2014 11:18 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BURNABY (NEWS1130) – Urgent calls for change are being made today by the Transportation Safety Board in the wake of the Lac-Megantic disaster last July. The agency is out with its report after the runaway train loaded with oil derailed and exploded, flattening part of the town and leaving 47 people dead.
The first area of concern is the DOT-111 railcars which were all involved in the disaster and helped fuel the fire.
TSB Chair Wendy Tadros wants new tougher standards that would basically phase out tens of thousands of the older model cars. “The longer they are in the system, the longer that risk will be in the system.”
The board also wants safer routes with a speed limit of 80 km/h and sensors to detect defective railcars. It’s also telling rail companies to draft emergency response plans.
Tadros is pressing that these changes be made sooner rather than later. “The risks are that we will have further derailments and that they will involve the older Class 111 tank cars.”
The TSB also wants similar routes to that of Lac Megantic be inspected at least twice a year.
Meantime, one Burnaby city councillor isn’t sure the recommendations go far enough. Councillor Nick Volkow is specifically talking about the suggestion to inspect key train routes transporting dangerous goods every two years.
“In talking to retired railroaders when it comes to the issues of roadbeds and the ties and the spikes coming loose and things like that, twice a year just isn’t going to cut it,” he explains. “I think one of the problems why they’re getting away with twice a year is that over the last 15 or 20 years, the railroads have cut so many workers.”
Volkow is not overly confident the recommendations will even be implemented anytime soon.
Another worry for him is the cars themselves; he explains we’ve known for years that they are inadequate. “So they’re going to have to step it up, it has got to be done in the next two or three years… common people you’re making a fortune as railroads… you guys are going to have to get on the ball.”
