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Canada on verge of stricter rail rules
GARY PARK For Petroleum News
The Canadian government plans to impose new rail safety measures in an upcoming budget against a backdrop of startling new information that a 10-second procedure could have prevented the crude train disaster in mid-2013 that gutted the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people.
However, a federal spending squeeze amid talk of a C$30 billion deficit could limit what is achievable as an internal memorandum in Transport Canada points to staffing cuts.
Since the train hauling 72 cars of Bakken crude was derailed and exploded, Transport Canada increased its number of inspectors to 137 from about 100.
Whether those new employees will survive anticipated cuts will not be known until the budget is released March 22.
But buried in new rail operating rules issued last year to prevent another tragedy like Lac-Megantic was a disclosure that the accident “likely” would have been prevented had automatic brakes on the tanker cars been set as a precautionary measure when the train was left unattended.
Application of brakes The Transportation Safety Board report said that if staff employed by the train operator - Montreal Maine & Atlantic - had ignored an MM&A instruction not to take the time (estimated by industry sources at 10 seconds) needed to apply the automatic brakes as a “secondary defense” the train would likely have been secured.
Although the application of the brakes requires only a simple procedure, it does take about 15 minutes to reset the system and release the automatic brakes.
Regardless of a belief that air pressure can leak from brake cylinders over a varied period, rail industry experts believe the train could have been held in place for more hours than the train operator was planning to use for a rest before resuming the journey.
The application of the automatic brake is now considered an acceptable fall-back measure in addition to applying hand brakes under new operating rules issued in October.
For now, Transportation Safety Board Chair Kathy Fox said disclosure of the 10-second safety procedure makes it imperative to tighten safety regulations and prevent runaway trains, but Railway Association of Canada President Michael Bourque said the assertion that the train could have been held in place by using an automatic brake was “highly speculative.”
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