Audit reveals safety problems at CN Rail
Last Updated: Friday, March 2, 2007 | 2:40 PM MT
CBC News
A safety audit of CN Railprompted by two train accidents found a long list of problems, includingfaulty equipment, improper safety practices and a high rate of safety defects on locomotives.
The audit was conducted in 2005, completed a year ago and released Friday after CBC News filed an access to information request. The auditstates CN has fully co-operated with Transport Canada and has improved some practices but that it must move further in that direction.
Transport Canada made 11 recommendations for change,eight of which, it said,the railway has alreadymoved to address.
Transport Canada launched the safety auditafter two train wrecks in Western Canada in 2005. In the first wreck, a CN train jumped the rails and spilled oil into Lake Wabamun in Alberta. Two days later, a second train plunged into the Cheakamus Canyon in B.C. and spilled caustic soda into the river.
The two-phase report reveals a number of problems with both targeted safety inspections and with CN’s safety management practices.
In the first phase of the report, investigatorsfound a number of “safety defects” in CN’s equipment. These defects could cause a derailment, personal injury or property/environment damage.
For example, auditorsfound a “significantly high rate” of safety defects (54 per cent) on the locomotivesthey inspected with problems ranging frombrake gear defects totoo much oil accumulated on locomotives and fuel tanks.
The audit also recorded a numberof differentsystem and brake geardefects and defects with the cars themselves, including 27 occurrences of an “unsecured plug type door.”
Derailment risk
“The loss of this door on a train in transit has in the past caused the loss of life,” the report says, adding the problemcauses a medium to high risk for derailment.
The inspection also found a large number oflocations where track conditons did not comply with track safety
Thanks for posting this.
You are welcome. Only trying to perform a public service. Maybe once I’ve retired this year I could get a job with Transport Canada and/or the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. I won’t be wearing rose coloured glasses when I confront the ones at the top starting with the CEO. He does not impress me as being anything but a childish bully. I would not be intimidated, coerced, bought, bamboozled or jerked around by him or his gang. As long as I had free rein to do my job by making unannounced and free roaming snap inspections things would go along nicely for everyone but the upper company echelon and the greediest of the major investors. I start my cleansing at the top. Things would self correct themselves long before I’d end up at the rank and file level. There are still a few field supervisors around that know how to correctly run a railway. If things really improved the company could even have capable railroaders in union positions that would take those management positions that now go crying to be filled. In the Signal Department here in southern Ontario we’ve had highly motivated and experienced supervisors either come back to the ranks or quit entirely. The department now suffers under the edicts of totally ignorant and arrogant managers off the street who have no idea what the Signal Department is nor choose to be educated about it. Also their management skills when dealing with the employees is horrendous. I guess that’s something they don’t teach in Hunter Camps.
It was previously posted here http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/1054991/ShowPost.aspx
Maybe Bergie can merge the two threads together?
Wow! The fertilizer will certainly hit the ventilator if you get that job! You’d have the brass shaking in their boots waiting for you to show up!
And on behalf of the lives you will save, and for the suffering you will prevent, we thank you.
I am very surprised that there are safety defects on the locomotives , The ones I’m familier with are in very good condition, especially the ones that run in the US. Most of the CN mechanical people that I have met are very competant.
Panel to review rail safety act
Alisen Charlten
Wednesday March 07, 2007
The federal government announced last week that they will be forming a panel to conduct a thorough review of the Rail Safety Act.
Federal Minister of Transport Lawrence Cannon has said the panel will be looking to identify possible gaps in the current powers within the act and modernize the regulatory framework to improve safety.
The announcement comes after a number of serious derailments have occurred in recent years including the Lake Wabamun derailment that spilled more than 700,000 litres of bunker oil and wood preserve into the lake.
According to a press release sent out by Yellowhead’s Member of Parliament Rob Merrifield, a wide range of stakeholders will be consulted during the review including the public, railway company employees and their unions, environmental groups and municipalities.
“It’s something that I committed to when we started having the derailments in the riding particularly spurred by what happened in Wabamun…I’m very pleased that we’re going to take a very thorough look,” said Merrifield in an interview with the Booster.
Merrifield said that it’s the federal government’s obligation to ensure rail companies move product in a safe and environmentally responsible way. This is of special concern to him because of the environmentally sensitive land that surrounds the rail lines between Edmonton and the B.C. border.
The decision to review the act has come on the heels of a tentative agreement between CN Rail and striking United Transportation Union workers.
During the strike the Booster spoke with a number of local conductors who said safety concerns were directly linked to their main reasons for the strike action.
Merrifield said that he spoke to UTU members on the picket line during the strike, and though it’s not the federal government’s business to intervene in the negotiation process, it is their responsibility to govern and regulate.