Runaway Quebec Train's Owner Battled Safety Issues

[cali]

The operator of the runaway train that derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, this weekend recorded an accident rate far higher than the U.S. average over the past 10 years, federal data show.

Rail World is controlled by a Chicago-area railroad veteran, Edward Burkhardt, who has put together an empire of small railroads around the world. Mr. Burkhardt, Rail World's chairman and chief executive, has spent a lifetime in the industry, earning the respect of many fellow rail executives.

But the 74-year-old Yale graduate has also faced criticism for a bitter battle with one of his boards and for championing the controversial use of remote-controlled trains in rail yards and one-person crews. The deadly Quebec derailment has put MM&A's safety record under a microscope.

<snip>

But measured by accidents and incidents per million miles traveled, MM&A has a much higher rate than the national average, federal data show. In 2012, for example, the company's rate was 36.1 occurrences per million miles, while the national average was 14.6. Between 2003 and 2011, the company's rate ranged between 23.4 and 56 incidents per million miles, while the national average ranged between 15.9 and 19.3.

<snip>

But some former workers have criticized Mr. Burkhardt for being a proponent of single-engineer-operated trains and so-called radio-controlled trains, in which trains are controlled remotely in train yards. Mr. Burkhardt said that in a modern engine there is no role for a second person and that remote control improves safety in yards.

Such practices are increasingly common in the industry, particularly in Europe and New Zealand. In North America, though, most train operators still use two staff, including Canada's two largest, Canadian National Railway Ltd. CNR.T -0.71% and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. CP.T -0.41%

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324507404578593860896712862.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Let us police ourselves, they said. It will be safe, they said.

We can save money and be safe all at the same time.


Right.

[Aerows]

12. And then

disaster strikes and it's all "Who could have imagined something like this could happen?"

[exboyfil]

2. And I bet he has his company organized in such a way

as to minimize his total liability. When they go to collect the massive damages, the shell will be empty and you won't be able to pierce his corporate veil.

[cali]

3. The rising use of only one person operating and on these trains is a shockingly bad practice

It needs to be ended- as does the use of tanker cars that were deemed unsafe 20 years ago.

[B2G]

4. This could have all been avoided if

they had just chocked the wheels. Incredible that they didn't.

[cali]

5. not enough is known yet. and honestly

with the stratospheric rise of transport of oil by rail in the last 3 years, in tanker cars that were deemed unsafe 20 years ago, over poor rail infrastructure through densely populated towns and cities, if practices aren't changed, it will happen again. Experts have been predicting accidents for over a year now.

[B2G]

6. I understand all of that, but

we're talking about this instance. Chocking would have prevented this tragedy.

[cali]

7. maybe. I still think we don't know enough

and the use of the tank cars that are manufactured in Dallas that are much safer might have too.

[Jerry442]

9. Absolutely. When you operate so a single-point failure can cause a massive tragedy...

...that is nothing short of criminal negligence. The only thing holding that train on the hill was the air brakes of a single unattended locomotive, which had to run continuously. It appears now that firefighters shut the engine down while extinguishing a fire, not realizing that that would ultimately release the air brakes and allow the train to roll down the hill.

I hope the Canadian legal system doesn't let the railroad get away with the argument that it was a freak accident that no one could possibly have anticipated. Their operating procedures made it inevitable.

On edit:
Any of these devices would have prevented the accident.

http://www.saferack.com/railcar-derail-systems.cfm

[B2G]

11. +1000

To blame this on the vague notion that oil is somehow unsafe is to excuse their gross negligence.

[thucythucy]

13. At first glance this all looks unbelievably stupid.

Who the hell, after putting out a fire on a train packed with high explosive fuel, decides to leave the entire assembly unattended?

I'm no expert on trains, fires, or oil, but to act this way defies common sense.

[cali]

14. nothing is yet established, but there's a whole lot of stupid apparently.

[pinboy3niner]

15. The fire department didn't leave the train unattended

The fire department left only after MMA employees were on-site and in charge of the train. Burkhardt's slimy attempt to pin the blame on the Nantes Fire Department is bogus:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Nantes+fire+chief+confirms+late+night+fire+before/8631340/story.html

[thucythucy]

16. But didn't the MMA then leave the train unattended?

That's the account I thought I heard, but I could be wrong.

If the train wasn't unattended, why was there no apparent attempt to sound an alarm after the tank cars broke loose?

As Cali says all the facts aren't in--but assuming the train was indeed left unattended, whoever made that decision wasn't thinking clearly.

[Jerry442]

17. Really. Are we supposed to believe the MMA people watched the train roll silently away...

...and stood there and said to themselves, "That's OK. It's supposed to do that"?

[FarCenter]

18. I believe that the train began to roll after the MMA people left

Fire chief angrily denies suggestion his crew played role in deadly Lac-Mégantic train disaster

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023205067

It goes back to when the engineer first parked and left the train to go to the hotel. Depending on braking from a running engine is not within regulations for a train on a grade. Hand brakes should have been set on the locomotives and on enough of the cars to prevent them from moving. A derailer should also be used.

Most likely, these steps were omitted because they require some physical effort and there is only one person to do them.

The later MMA people should have set hand brakes after the fire. But one report said that they were track men. They would not necessarily be familiar with train operation.

[pinboy3niner]

8. The chief of the Nantes Fire Dept. (that put out the earlier locomotive fire) is worried

Last edited Tue Jul 9, 2013, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

When asked if he would be nervous if MMA trains were to come through Nantes again, Lambert responded immediately: “Yes.”

Nantes fire chief confirms late-night fire before explosion
By Adam Kovac, THE GAZETTE July 8, 2013
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Nantes+fire+chief+confirms+late+night+fire+before/8631340/story.html

[MicaelS]

19. I don't think so, there's more to this story.

There had to have been multiple failures.

As a former brakeman / conductor we never chocked wheels on a main line, or in a siding. I never saw chocks anywhere except in a dedicated car maintenance / repair facility or at a business where they might release the handbrakes and bleed the air off the cars. Chocks can hold 1 or 2 cars, but not a whole train. If a train were just chocked, with enough weight, cars can climb chocks or chocks become dislodged. We always applied the engine air brakes, the train line air brakes, and the hand brakes on each locomotive plus handbrakes on enough cars to hold the train, which could be as many as 50% of the total number of freight cars on the train.

Why weren't the train air brakes fully applied? Why weren't enough handbrakes applied? Even if the train line air went into emergency, the emergency air should have been enough to hold the train unless it was on a terrific downgrade.

Unless some maniac knew what they were doing, and caused this horrific tragedy by deliberately releasing all the brakes.

I'm beginning to think only the engine brakes were applied, no train line air brakes or handbrakes. When they engine brakes bled off because of loss of air, the train rolled away.

[Jerry442]

20. A technical question:

Wouldn't a derail, if it had been attached at a point where the train couldn't gather much speed before hitting it, stop a train, no matter how long or how steep the grade, by derailing as many cars at it would take to bring everything to a halt?

Not that that would have been a good outcome from the railroad's point of view.

[MicaelS]

21. Correct, a derail would have done that.

But I don't know what the track where the train had been parked looked like. Was in the main line? A siding? A yard? What was the grade? There are also different type of derails. There is the "flop" type, which are usually painted bright yellow, and there is the "switch" type, which is built into part of the track.

[Jerry442]

22. TY. Very informative. nt

[bluedigger]

10. Disaster should prompt state to examine rail regs

The runaway train was like a rolling bomb on rails.

...

Ed Burkhardt, chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, told the Bangor Daily News on Monday that the train had been properly prepared by the crew, but when firefighters put out a small fire under the engine Friday night, after the train had been prepared for the night, the air compressor that controls the air brake was turned off, allowing the brakes to fail.

He also assured Mainers that such a crew change, where the train is allowed to be left unattended, is not permitted in the U.S.

Good thing. And now perhaps Canada will review its regulations, and agree that leaving a train with tanker cars loaded with oil or any other hazardous material unattended is not a good idea.

...

On Monday, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Transportation told Maine Public Broadcasting the state follows federal regulations regarding the transport of oil. The state should not simply abdicate its responsibility to the feds. MDOT and any other pertinent state agencies should be reviewing the federal regulations.

Let's use this terrible incident, which happened only miles from our border, as an opportunity to examine the federal regulations that govern the transportation of such materials through our state to make sure they do what's necessary to reduce the possibility of such a disaster here.

Don't assume the feds have it right; in Canada they didn't.

http://www.sunjournal.com/news/our-view/2013/07/09/disaster-should-prompt-state-examine-rail-regs/1389950