Canada, U.S. make long-awaited rail safety plan

Agreement 10 years in works will phase out train cars like one involved in Lac-Megantic

Thestar.com
May 2, 2015
By Alexander Panetta

Canada and the U.S. have announced a decade-long plan to phase out trains like the one involved in the deadly 2013 derailment and explosion in Lac-Megantic, Que.

The long-awaited schedule was made public Friday at a news conference by Transport Minister Lisa Raitt and U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

It sets standards for new train cars and, for older cars, a series of seven deadlines between May 2017 and May 2025 by which different models need to be retrofitted.

The first deadline applies to the most dangerous car - flammable-substance-carrying, non-jacketed DOT-111s, like those that barrelled into the Quebec town and killed 47 people.

A key milestone is set for 2020, by which point all types of cars carrying crude oil will have to be retrofitted with new shells, head shields and thermal protection.

The announcement also sets speed limits in urban and non-urban areas and requires a new electronic braking system.

“I know that the safety measures we have outlined today will not be easy, and quite frankly they will not be cheap,” Raitt said. “But the financial losses, and the costs of cleaning up, after such events as Lac-Megantic will in the long run be far more burdensome.”

The news conference began with a reference to the Quebec disaster, which involved a train carrying a highly flammable variety of light crude oil from the U.S. Midwest.

Oil production has skyrocketed in that region and, as a result, so has the volume of oil entering Canada by train: the U.S. now sends more than 10 million barrels per month of crude into Canada, up from less than one million a few years ago.

The NDP lamented that the changes didn’t apply sooner, pointing to the fiery derailment in Gogoma this spring.

The federal Transportation Safety Board concluded that those Class 1232 trains reacted just like the older ones in Lac-Megantic.

“Those cars are still on our rails - and they’ll still be on our rails for 10 years,” said the NDP’s Hoang Mai.

“That is a concern for Canadians.”