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Harrison: CP wants to refuse hazardous shipments
I like the way this RR is thinking. Smart. Divert the costs of ensuring the CBR oil is treated and violates removed prior to being loaded into rail cars onto the shipper at the point of loading. Might not stop the derailments though, as that has more to do with the physics involved with moving liquid in volumes by rail. I suspect the COG, center of gravity, is the main culprit involved with the derailments, and the violates in the oil are the cause of ignition of the ensuing fires.
HH is just out to protect his own hide, don’t believe any of the other BS he mentions…especially since he said “in spite of the bottom line”…I don’t believe him for one second. Then acknowledging that rail is still the safest way to transport these commodities over land, I think he just wants to be able to charge additional fees to transport it by rail, imo.
I don’t think most people understand that Common Carrier status in a railroad’s charter means that the railroad cannot turn down any traffic. This was upheld in court when UP wanted to avoid a long distance hazardous materials transport when a source closer to the destination could provide the same product. If I recall, the court said that UP had to haul the product the longer distance between origination and destination that the customer wanted, not what the railroad wanted…
How about first restoring the track repair and maintenance budget that were so savagely cut since you took office, Mr Harrison? What you wouldn’t do to artificially decrease your operating ratio… Did this at CN for nearly a decade, and look at the results now: two fiery derailments in two weeks in Northern Ontario.
Have any of these derailments shown indications of sabotage? I hope there is not a group of yo-yos out there derailing oil trains. That would be a way to put pressure on the government to approve new oil pipeline construction by making railroad transportation of oil appear too dangerous.
Sounds like after CP got a little taste of the lawsuits coming out of the Lac Magantac disaster (of which they are included), they’ve looked at their exposure if a similar incident were to occur and have decided they want no part of the liability. In this day and age, if a major disaster was to take place say, in Chicago or Minneapolis, no amount of insurance could keep even these large class 1’s from possibly going bankrupt.
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Interesting thoughts, Mr. Losleben. If someone had asked me a year ago if I thought oil trains were being sabotaged, I would have laughed out loud, or at least mentioned black helicopters and tinfoil hats. Now, and especially after hearing of today’s tragedy near Galena, IL, I’m not so sure. Seems at least half the major derailments in the past two years have involved crude oil shipments and, perhaps tellingly, fire. Your speculation as to motive would seem as good as any.