Both the TSB and RCMP investigations are still ongoing.
Odd that the lead investigator would speak to the media independently of his employer, the TSB.
Employees of regulatory agencies that are not the designated spokesperson for the agency are not speaking for the agency and are subject to discipline when they do. This is not limited to TSB but any organization in any country.
Yeah, you could see the news reporters badgering CP Rail CEO Creel about this even in the United States it made the news of course because if it bleeds it leads. Anyways, he did not look too happy at the time about it and he even walked away from the group of reporters prematurely in anger. They were not just asking about this accident either but this is the one that triggered the interest of the news media to start the ambush reporting.
I understand that there is an alleged cover-up of the cause of this disaster. What is it that would have been covered up? I understand the train arrived and the engineer made an emergency application that stopped the train. I don’t know what action was taken as the train was standing there, but I understand that it stood there for possibly up to 3 hours. Then the relief crew boarded the train to continue, but the emergency application released on its own and the train rolled away.
There were comments about the car brake cylinder packing being either worn from long usage and/or being too cold, so it was rendered unable to retain the cylinder pressure. After the wreck, I would have expected the TSB to inspect every car cylinder packing component, and also to have refrigerated sample cylinders to check the effect of the cold temperatures on the cylinder packing. If they had done that, I conclude that they may have learned that the emergency application leaked off due to unreliable cylinder packing.
This would raise the question of how long the rules permitted the train to be held on the grade by the emergency application alone. From what I recall of our discussions here, that question was never answered. A general premise is that air alone is not reliable for train securement because it can leak off on an unpredictable basis.
In any case, why wouldn’t the TSB investigation have been allowed to just run its course, and if it found evidence of negligence, then make the charge of negligence and release the evidence that supports the charge? Or why not just investigate to find the cause
Odd that the TSB would not trust their own investigator’s expert opinion that a criminal investigation was warranted.
Crawford obviously felt that becoming a public whistleblower was the only way to achieve this end.
[quote user=“Euclid”]
I understand that there is an alleged cover-up of the cause of this disaster. What is it that would have been covered up? I understand the train arrived and the engineer made an emergency application that stopped the train. I don’t know what action was taken as the train was standing there, but I understand that it stood there for possibly up to 3 hours. Then the relief crew boarded the train to continue, but the emergency application released on its own and the train rolled away.
There were comments about the car brake cylinder packing being either worn from long usage and/or being too cold, so it was rendered unable to retain the cylinder pressure. After the wreck, I would have expected the TSB to inspect every car cylinder packing component, and also to have refrigerated sample cylinders to check the effect of the cold temperatures on the cylinder packing. If they had done that, I conclude that they may have learned that the emergency application leaked off due to unreliable cylinder packing.
This would raise the question of how long the rules permitted the train to be held on the grade by the emergency application alone. From what I recall of our discussions here, that question was never answered. A general premise is that air alone is not reliable for train securement because it can leak off on an unpredictable basis.
In any case, why wouldn’t the TSB investigation have been allowed to just run its course, and if it found evidence of negligence, then make the charge of negligence and release the evidence that supports the charge? Or wh
Investigators are supposed to investigate. He was premature in his conclusions, and presumably his “superiors” at the TSB are his superiors for a reason… i.e. their expertise is at least on par with his. His bosses disagreed with his conclusions… possibly for good reason. Criminal negligence is a high bar to meet… by running to the media under the guise of whistleblower protection so early on he impuned and blindsided his employer, compromised the investigation, and turned it into the circle jerk it is now.
TSB probably uses the same approach toward perceived impartiality as the NTSB uses here: making clear that no material in or from an investigation can be used as evidence in any court proceeding. For Crawford to invoke criminal investigation is a violation of that principle.
What he should have done, if he felt so strongly that criminal action was a factor (and ongoing) and that his concerns were not perceived as ‘significant enough’ going through channels available to him … which itself seems a little peculiar … eould be to recuse himself as lead investigator, and possibly resign from any responsible position in the TSB, and then go to the media with his story, make the virtue signal that he resigned out of conscience, use the bully pulpit of his previous responsibility and credentials, etc.
Then see if the powers-that-be put him in a good career afterward based on his civic commitment to justice and safety…
Why wouldn’t the safety board investigators be legally trained in the proper collection, preservation and securing of evidence, for possible referal for futher criminal investigation if appropriate, and to serve as expert witnesses if called? That does not preclude initial impartiality.
That is my thought also. Too many regulators get too cozy with those they are tasked to independently investigate. And as is presented, CP roared and the TSB caved making the case that they were intimidated.
That is the strange part. How can a private company possibly intimidate a Government bureaucracy? How can an accident investigation bureaucracy do its job if the investigated party can prevent that on the grounds that it will damage their reputation?
Perhaps when the Government bureaucracy demonstrably violates its own claim of impartiality and neutrality in investigation?
Well, CP may have a legitimate grievance, but what I mean is that I don’t see how a private company can have the leverage to intimidate a Government bureaucracy.
But to your other point: Does a call for investigation of negligence violate a claim of impartiality? Maybe it does, but I don’t know how the needle is threaded. The NTSB makes a similar claim of something to the effect of not placing blame, but rather, finding probable cause. The difference seems a bit unclear to me.
In any case, what would be the actual leverage that the CP could exercize against TSB by threatening them with legal action? What is the actual force of such legal action that would cause TSB to back down?
I think that the ‘leverage’ is that whether or not the lawyers prevail in their threatened suit, a great deal of taxpayer money in potentially scarce budgets will have to be expended, and there may well be consequences for Government career survival. Particularly if publicity can be swung to show specific Government staff violated some rule or other.
This is a bit ironic because the TSB itself loves to find and mention various violations of paper rules to spice up their ‘finding of fact’ in no few of the reports I’ve read.
Precisely in the way CP asserted. Not only does it prejudge culpability, it prima facie labels it to be criminal.
One of the points behind the NTSB’s very pointed reason for impartiality is that plaintiff’s bar just loves latching onto reports that further their ‘take’ … very specifically, as reported in the CBC story itself.
There is plenty of time to assert and prove criminality when the various cases go to trial. Contaminating evidence by making prejudicial statements … perhaps needlessly prejudicial statements … has been trouble in court proceedings many times, and I expect it will prove so here.
A place the difference becomes particularly obvious is the report on an accident with multiple contributing causes – Lac Megantic being a classic example. It is relatively easy to describe the series of events leading up to the accident. It is even possible to assign them relative weight or significance… or, indeed, to note when some are circumstantial rather than ‘proximate causes’. In the sense tha
I think Government bureaucracies may be exempt from the cancel culture, and possibly even part of it. In any case, I would be satisfied if rail accidents were investigated merely to find cause and not criminal negligence. Cause is self-evident if you look hard enough. But it seems that the issue motivating this so-called whistle blowing was a feeling that CP was making evidence inaccessible to the investigation. And the worry was that the disaster would be blamed on CP employees rather than management.
Regarding cause, it seems like it was most directly related to the emergency application being relied on to secure the train on the grade. I don’t recall anyone questioning whether that was permitted. It has been said that they did not supplement the emergency application with handbrakes, but they did set retainers. What was their purpose of setting retainers?
I was thinking that the purpose was to supplement the emergency application by setting retainers rather than setting handbrakes, but maybe that assumption was incorrect. Perhaps the setting of retainers was intended leave them set as a precaution during the continuation of the run after leaving Field.
[quote user=“Euclid”]
Overmod
Euclid
What is the actual force of such legal action that would cause TSB to back down?
Even the threat in today’s cancel culture might be enough…
I think Government bureaucracies may be exempt from the cancel culture, and possibly even part of it. In any case, I would be satisfied if rail accidents were investigated merely to find cause and not criminal negligence. Cause is self-evident if you look hard enough. But it seems that the issue motivating this so-called whistle blowing was a feeling that CP was making evidence inaccessible to the investigation. And the worry was that the disaster would be blamed on CP employees rather than management.
Regarding cause, it seems like it was most directly related to the emergency application being relied on to secure the train on the grade. I don’t recall anyone questioning whether that was permitted. It has been said that they did not supplement the emergency application with handbrakes, but they did set retainers. What was their purpose of setting retainers?
I was thinking that the purpose was to supplement the emergency application by setting retainers rather than setting handbrakes, but maybe that assumption was incorrect. Perhaps the setting of retainers was intended leave them set as a precaution during the continuation of the run after leaving Field.
It is also worth noting that the only current TSB board member with any sort of railroad background is a former CP exec.
http://tsb.gc.ca/eng/qui-about/bureau-board.html
I agree with Ian Naish’s assessment in the CBC article I originally posted, the TSB is supposed to be legally impartial and a safety investigator publicly calling for a criminal investigation violates that.
But it is the RCMP who conducts any criminal investigation and determines what is or isn’t criminally negligent, not the TSB. I don’t see how alerting the police and letting them make their own decision violates anything.
The RCMP have now been conducting a criminal investigation into CP and this incident for over a year six months now. If there really was absolutely nothing to go on they would have ended their investigation by now.
It doesn’t. As I understand the story, Crawford tried to get the appropriate ‘powers that be’ to pursue a criminal investigation and couldn’t get anyone to do it; that is what made him ‘go to the media’.
I believe the now-ongoing RCMP investigation into the current matter started nearly a year later.
[quote user=“BaltACD”]
Euclid
Overmod
Euclid
What is the actual force of such legal action that would cause TSB to back down?
Even the threat in today’s cancel culture might be enough…
I think Government bureaucracies may be exempt from the cancel culture, and possibly even part of it. In any case, I would be satisfied if rail accidents were investigated merely to find cause and not criminal negligence. Cause is self-evident if you look hard enough. But it seems that the issue motivating this so-called whistle blowing was a feeling that CP was making evidence inaccessible to the investigation. And the worry was that the disaster would be blamed on CP employees rather than management.
Regarding cause, it seems like it was most directly related to the emergency application being relied on to secure the train on the grade. I don’t recall anyone questioning whether that was permitted. It has been said that they did not supplement the emergency application with handbrakes, but they did set retainers. What was their purpose of setting retainers?
I was thinking that the purpose was to supplement the emergency application by setting retainers rather than setting handbrakes, but maybe that assumption was incorrect. Perhaps the setting of retainers was intended leave