Anyone remember that derailment last year? Where cas went into Chekamus canyon? Well, that has some serious environmental impacts… http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/02/07/cheakamus-report060207.html
They REALLY need to clean up their act.
no kidding. Still a CN fan though.
Wow! I wonder if we’re going to be seeing “Mutant” animals like two headed fish and puss spitting deer years down the line
I like CN but this certainly was a very serious mishap.
Well I sure hope CN pays for the resteration like SP did in the Sacramento Valley after the Chemical Derailment in 1991.
This is a chicken little report. Will not take 50 years to recover. The caustic soda has long been in the ocean by now. Something like 3-5 years is more realistic.
Mac McCulloch
We had a farm in my area that had a wall collapse on a manure pit, dumping millions of gallons of the stuff into a nearby river. Fish died, people were advised to avoid the water. All but forgotten now, less than a year later.
Sodium Hydroxide is sometimes known as lye. You probably have some under your bathroom sink (drain cleaner). There’s no question that it’s going to do damage in large quantities, but nature flushes herself out pretty well.
There is a lake in the Adirondacks that was the poster child for the damage acid rain can do to the environment, virtually barren of life. Experts thought it would be many years before there was life in it again. Guess what? They found fish in it.
Are you saying that CNRR wanted the derailment in the canyon? [8)]
[quote]
Originally posted by trainboyH16-44
Well, people always do underestimate mother nature, take Mt. St. Helens. After the big eruption in 1980, they expected it to be many years before life returned, but weeds sprung up in the ash quite promptly, and wildlife returned much faster than usual, and a lot more lived through the eruption tahn they expected.
Still, CN really needs to clean up their act…
Well I doubt they’ll be trying to put more locomotives in that canyon. You auger a brand new diesel locomotive into the canyon and you just dug yourself a 2 million dollar hole.
On a bigger scale the Indians of Lake Wabamum have decided to sue CN, the Alberta government and the Canadian government for $775 million for damages relating to the oil and chemical spill around the same time. You are quite right in saying that CN needs to clean up its act. I think that is why they are spending so much on capital improvements to the system in 2006. The spending in 2006 is not really to add capacity but to improve the track, bridges and signals of the existing network. You can only get the operating expenses so low before you start to have an impact on the system as a whole. I guess you can say the CN has been practicing deferred maintenance even when it is in the financial position to maintain its infrastructure to provide safe and efficient service. Their derailment record in the past several years has not been something to be proud off. Of course Mr.Harrison’s method of increasing efficiency will be to take the short term approach and remove more double track and alternate routings as was done between London and Chicago.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by spbed
Are you saying that CNRR wanted the derailment in the canyon? [8)]
Of course he is. He wants us all to jump on his little bandwagon and state that we “hate” CN because…yada, yada, yada. Nasty executives ordered the ROW maintainers and rolling stock mechanics to make sure the incident happened just to show us who’s boss…yada, yada, …keep us plain folk in our place…yada, yada…ripping off the environment…yada…ad nauseum, ad infinitum…still more yada if you check then…
BTW, right from day one, CN admitted liability and responsibility, were sorry publicly, and are now offering over CDN $1.2M to put it right…after all reparations to the ROW and recovery. I suspect that will rise, because frankly it seems low by a factor of about 2…who knows.