Good video, interesting issues raised by CBC…
Whomever instructed the original crew not to secure the train with hand brakes is the culpable party.
The Relieving crew walked into a Death Trap and sprung it.
Regarding the comment made in the family meeting about grain hoppers being pulled from service for inspection and repairs; for the past two to three years the Federal government in Canada held CP and CN both accountable for not moving what the government felt was sufficient quantities of grain. The railway’s reaction to this was to start priortizing grain movement to the point that it was negatively impacting the movement of other products in western Canada.
If - and I stress “if” CP was not properly inspecting and repairing grain equipment it likely was directly related to the government’s insistence they must move certain quotas of grain or face substantial penalties. Kind of a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation.
Curt
Interviews w the Crew that got OFF the train might be revealing?
Thank You.
The corporate practices of both railways over the last 20 years resulted in reduced investment in the physical plant, and even some capacity reduction projects. I’m saying that as nicely and quickly as possible.
The regulations on car inspections, maintenance intervals, and train braking capabilities are very clear, and have changed little over the past few decades. If the railways cannot find the time to maintain the existing car fleet and also meet customer and government expectations, then they obviously do not have enough cars. The solution is to buy or lease more cars, not cease to perform proper maintenance.
And they have been cutting back on car maintenance. For some years car inspectors have been performing No. 1 air brake tests by driving beside the train, which does not allow for a proper visual inspection of many parts of a railcar. Transport Canada is at fault for allowing the railways to implement this sort of practice.
It is important to note here that train crews are not allowed to perform No. 1A air tests (check brake application and release) from a vehicle, we must walk.
SD70; if CN and CP are lax about inspecting and bad ordering their own equipment; it’s probably because they determined they could juice their bottom lines by bad ordering and repairing private equipment.
After the widespread deployment of WILD detectors; private car wheel replacement costs went through the roof. Yet, when I’ve had a spare moment to stand and watch a train go by; it seems most flat spots are now on equipment with railroad reporting marks.
I questioned several different railroad folks at times asking if they had any data to indicate the incidence of flat wheels on private cars versus that of railroad equipment. The response invariably was a terse “no” - next question?
Curt
Yeah, that sounds about right. Find even more creative ways to bill the customers.
But it still does not excuse them from failing to take the time to properly maintain their own fleets.
It sure seems like such interviews would be revealing. As I recall, the previous crew was having problems with braking, and so they made an emergency application. This was the application that was left holding the train for the crew change. Somehow, I had also understood that there was no requirement to secure the train with handbrakes; except subject to some conditions. I don’t quite recall those conditions, but they may have related to the amount of time the train was left with only the emergency application holding it.
In any case, in the video above, they seem to say that setting hand brakes was not required unless there was evidence of a braking problem prior to stopping. It sure seems like that was the case with this train. So that would be the fine point that the company would hang their hat on. I guess it would depend on the meaning of “knowing the train had a braking problem” prior to stopping. So, yes, interviewing that crew that dumped air to stop the train would be interesting.
But the most incredible warning, as I see it, would have been when the new crew had boarded the engine for departure, and the emergency application simply released on its own. It would seem that they would have realized that
I think we know that the brake air application released due to leaking cylinder packing. What we don’t know is why the handbrakes had never been set as insurance against an unintended release. I will speculate that the reason for not setting handbrakes was the time and effort it would have taken. The train was deemed to be under control as long as the air application held. That was believed to be good enough.
Actually, it is the same reason that insufficient handbrakes were set at Lac Megantic. However, at Lac Megantic, the rules were clear and the need for setting the handbrakes was clear during most of the aftermath discussion.
According to the video above, there was no requirement to set handbrakes on the train that ran away at Field, BC unless certain conditions existed. At least one of those conditions is said to have been the existence of braking problems prior to stopping.
If that is the case, then the only justification for not setting handbrakes after the train stopped was that the existence of braking problems had not been discovered. There was speculation that braking problems had existed prior to stopping, but that was only speculation and not proven. So that leaves this question:
Does circumstantial evidence of a braking problem constitute a braking problem?
If I recall correctly, the engineer who brought the train into Field, BC reported experiencing braking problems with the train. This amounted to the train not decelerating as fast as would be ex
Wonder why charges of involuntary manslaughter have not been laid at the responsible operating officials . . .
- PDN.
Why even bother asking the CEO about it, that is so below his level of office in the company that I’m even surprised he answered the questions. Isn’t danger part and parcel of the job? isn’t that what repeater cars are for, or is CN the only one to use them? Was it tragic, yes and it was an accident, but was the cause of the accident negligence or just failure to follow operating rules. Also, why call in a death investigator and corporate criminal lawyer…what do they know about railroading? Also, those families expecting answers after only 10 months, don’t they know TSB/NTSB investigations take a couple of years at least? Way to many questions to answer we have to answers for.
A company official telling the original crew NOT TO APPLY HAND BRAKES, when the train was stopped because of braking issues in the first place was the cause. What if any effective communication was passed between the original crew and the relieving crew was a contributing cause.
Gerald, your comments show basic ignorance of the work environment railroaders operate in.
It is easy to type stuff like that on a keyboard, but do you plan to tell me to my face that I have no right to properly operating brakes on my train? And do you think it is ok for management to take the quicker course over the safe one, as was done when instructing the original crew to set retainers and not handbrakes?
Things like handbrakes, air brakes, and the operating rules exist to mitigate the risks in railroading. They must be properly used, maintained and obeyed, which does not appear to have happened on that fateful winter night.
I don’t believe CP uses aircars, but that is irrelevant because they would not have helped in this situation. The aircar’s purpose is to help set and release the brakes on a long train more quickly, they do nothing to help hold the train still. Train 301 was already set up in a 1x1x1 Distributed Power configuration, with a remote locomotive in the middle and an another on the tail end of the train. It doesn’t get any better than that for pumping air.
Failure to obey operating rules and use the available
Well said.
What I don’t comprehend is why the crew rode the train to the derailment rather than dismounting once they observed the train starting to move when it was in a condition ‘that in their minds’ it still should have been stationary. It does take time for the train to accelerate from Zero MPH, so, to my mind there was time to try a ‘trick or two’ and observe they weren’t working and dismount at a ‘near safe’ speed.
I am seeking clarification:
The following is a quote from the first attached report from TSB (posted above by SD70Dude) in which, after this runaway, they add a requirement to secure trains with handbrakes:
“Following the occurrence [the runaway train], on 8 February 2019, Transport Canada (TC) issued Ministerial Order MO 19-03 (Annex A) requiring that trains stopped by an emergency brake application on a grade of 1.8% or greater (i.e., mountain grade) immediately apply a sufficient number of hand brakes before recharging the air brake system.”
Notice that the last sentence has two conditions pertaining to the application of handbrakes, as follows:
-
Handbrakes must be applied before recharging the air brake system.
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Handbrakes must be applied immediately after stopping.
We’ve had extensive discussions about this before. Including considerable technical discussion about telemetric application of multiple emergency brakes in parallel, under power, and telemetric, possibly staged, release of emergency brakes when no longer required.
You can always tell a Government order by its mandatory insistence on impossible operations. It costs little for a twentysomething staff to write up a mandate about ‘immediate’ application of brakes; it’s quite a different thing when a crew with other mandated duties is expected to walk back along a consist tightening brakes that might have been maintained last by agrarian workers in 2006 so they absotively, posilutely apply with full force and effect. (Note the conscious use of a term familiar to twentysomething bureaucratic staff, in a context they might not recognize as unrelatable).
You may recall that when you look at the actual number of handbrakes the TC actually calculated itself would be required to bring this about on the train at Field, it worked out to being something like 78, or an appreciable percentage of the train length. I really see a reduced crew getting this done right after an emergency event … perhaps a repeated one with a dynamiter in the consist … before they can attend to anything else involved with train handling. It will take some time to apply all those brakes, all completely done before any release and recharge can begin, or really before more than a cursory inspection of the train for the ‘cause’ of the emergency application can be consciously undertaken … then more time still to set the train brake sufficiently to hold it and then go back to release a
The situation here was that almost immediately past the end of the siding the track enters the Upper Spiral Tunnel. There would have been very little time available to try a “trick or two”, which quite possibly was the initial reaction, before the tunnel made bailing off impossible. Re-emerging into daylight after something like 3/4 mile (IIRC) of 2.2% grade the speed attained continued to make it a questionable option. There was the possibility that the lead unit might have made it down to the bottom, as that happened with a different runaway event 25 years earlier. I don’t think the reports have detailed exactly how much time elapsed between the crew climbing aboard and the train starting to move.
John
I don’t understand how it was physically possible for the train to have rolled away with no braking capability and with the crew onboard the engine.
Reading between the lines: the crew was assuming that the emergency set would hold indefinitely; something that remains to be actually seen is whether they might have been ‘instructed’ not to go over hours of service in more than minimal numbers to keep cranking train brakes on. It would appear that the engineer from the relief crew had not boarded at the time the train began to move; perhaps he was ‘helping out’ with brake setting before assuming responsibility on the engine.
The emergency set released before anywhere near an adequate number of securing handbrakes had actually been set, by however many people were back on the train setting them. (The train would either not have moved, or accelerated more slowly, otherwise…)
It was evidently impossible to conduct a full release and recharge of the ‘leaked-down’ brake system (whether or not there was someone on the engine who promptly undertook that) before the train had accelerated to the speed at which even full brake application wouldn’t have held the train, probably at least roughly comparable to the 23 or so mph for the relevant parts of 17 Mile Grade. I suspect that speed would be independent of considerations related to the number of actually applied handbrakes as those would be fading at least as quickly as any others applied with more pressure behind them…