Off the Rails: How a Lack of Oversight Doomed Lac-Megantic

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/21


Firefighters inspect the smoldering wreckage of a freighter carrying crude oil that derailed into Lac-Megantic, Quebec. (François Laplante-Delagrave / AFP / Getty)

When a runaway train slammed into the small Quebec town of Lac-Megantic in July, incinerating the city’s core and killing 47 people, it may have marked the end of the line for the perilous, profit-maximizing model of railroading that has enthralled corporate and government officials across North America and the globe.

The principal proponent of this laissez-faire template for railroading—raising income while minimizing maintenance costs, resisting safety regulations, and fighting unions and adequate staffing—has been, fittingly enough, none other than Edward Burkhardt, owner of the Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic (MM&A) railway whose train decimated Lac-Megantic this summer.

Burkhardt—who also owns MM&A’s parent company, Illinois based Rail World Inc., which controls rail lines in the U.S. and Poland in addition to several hundred miles of MM&A track in Canada—was a pioneer in recognizing the profit-generating possibilities of rail deregulation made available by the Staggers Rail Act of 1980. The act permitted the formation of non-rail holding companies by rail corporations, who could then use the rationale that the rail lines had “new” owners to tear up existing union contracts.

Burkhardt was among the first to use this loophole in the Staggers Act to try to eliminate rail unions, which also facilitated reducing track maintenance and cutting rail-crew sizes to a minimum. Burkhardt has long been pressing for one-man crews and radio-directed unmanned trains.

[JayhawkSD]

1. I don't doubt that any part of this is accurate...

...but like much of today's reporting the article is long on accusation and short on actual documentation. I have no doubt the basis is correct and the problem is merely bad writing, and what I'm complaining about is not the content of the article, merely the quality of it.

It talks at great length about the operator's efforts to cut to one man crews, but never says that it has actually been done and admits that the disaster in Lac-Megantic involved a two man crew. What an operator wants to do reveals mind set and is certainly worth inclusion, but it is not an actual safety hazard until it is implemented and, being merely an intention, does not deserve to occupy half of the article and receive nearly all of the citations.

He talks about reduced maintenance but, other than a couple of derailments, gives no examples of how maintenance has been cut. Even the derailments are weak evidence, since derailments can have many causes other than poor maintenance. I would like to have seen discussion of reduced manpower, track failures, signal breakdowns... Something specific indicating maintenance was not being performed rather than a mere unfounded accusation of reduced maintenance. I'm wiling to bet that if he spent the time too look into it he could have found those examples.

But when an employee said, "They're cutting maintenance," he said "Okay fine" and went with that instead of being a real reporter and saying, "Okay, show me where they are cutting and what has happened as a result," in which case he could have given us some real reporting.