(The following story by Mark Nielsen appeared on the Prince George Citizen website on September 18.)
PRINCE GEORGE — CN Rail representatives appeared before city council Monday night to account for the fiery train crash in early August and to listen to concerns raised by council members in light of the incident.
Jim Vena, senior vice president for CN’s western region, started off by taking council through what led to the Aug. 4 collision between two train that derailed three cars — two of them carrying gas and one carrying lumber — resulting in a massive fire that sent a large plume of black smoke into the sky and fuel into the Fraser River.
One of the trains, which was coming into Prince George from Winnipeg, was heading into the B.C. Rail yard, now known as the Prince George South yard, while another was going through a “switching movement” via remote control operated by two supervisors, “and they made a mistake,” Vena said.
“And the mistake they made was the maximum speed you can move within a yard is 15 miles per hour…and they came over the top of the hill a little too fast and had more rail cars than the engine and the braking system they had in place at that time (could handle and it) was not able to stop.”
The train in the switching yard, which had no one in the engine, moved a couple thousand feet beyond where it was supposed to stop and ran into the train coming into the yard.
“So we no longer bring trains in on that lead anymore, when there is a movement pulling out of the rail yard, so we make sure there is no collision.”
Vena said quick action was taken to deal with the aftermath. Vena gave few details about what happened to the employee in question but said he was not fired.
His comments did little to put some council members at ease.
Coun. Don Zurowski said a disproportionate number of the accidents seem to have occurred in smaller population centres. In response, Vena said CN Rail employees are subject to the same levels of safety regardless of where they’re located in the system.
Coun. Debora Munoz said she’s heard concerns from employees about a lack of training as well as worries about improper maintenance along the tracks and a fear of raising such issues with management.
She also proposed a resolution that called for a co-ordinated and integrated response plan for emergencies, limits on train speeds particularly in residential areas, a system for notifying local government about dangerous goods passing through the community, and assurances that CN crossings and rights-of-way are safe and properly maintained.
Vena said he’s worked for CN for 30 years at both employee and management levels and can’t ever remember an employee being reprimanded for raising a safety issue. He added there are a number of protections under federal acts for employees who take such action and he said information can be phoned in anonymously to a CN ombudsman.
“The last thing we need is 21,000 employees who are afraid to raise issues,” he said.
As for the resolution,there already is an integrated response plan and indicated the other measures are largely covered by federal regulation.
Coun. Brian Skakun criticized CN’s assertion of human error.
“Was there a human component involved? No doubt, but I don’t think that blaming it on human error takes responsibility off CN for this incident,” he said. “I believe that your corporate practices are driven by profit as well and that is causing a great deal of concern by myself and many people in the community.”
The ongoing concern about trains too long for the BCR track was raised and drew a response from Vena.
“I’m not sure why people would think a company like CN or CP or any other major railway in North America would run trains above and beyond the length that we could safely handle them,” he said. “First of all, there’s a whole science behind the length of trains that we operate. CN does not run trains longer than other railways do, and we are concerned…when you hear all the stories about the length trains. Length of trains is not the cause of the accident.
“When one boxcar can cost you $80,000…at CN safety is the first thing.”
He also said that at the end of the day, accidents are CN’s responsibility and follow up usually entails better training and other steps to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“We want to move every boxcar through every community safely and we’ll work with every community,” he said.”And one last point, I’ve had to on this job and on previous jobs go tell people that their loved ones are not coming home and if anybody thinks that anybody at Canadian National would allow somebody to get injured or killed on the job is missing the whole point.”
Mayor Colin Kinsley said he shares residents’ concerns about safety but added he has some understanding of safety, productivity and the bottom line.
“A rail line being shut down, and a lot of manpower and resources spent putting normally rolling cars and customers’ goods back on the rail is akin to having the till closed at the local store,” he said. “Nothing goes in and nothing goes out, so safety has to be a number one issue, I mean there’s no denying it.”
The Transportation Safety Board’s investigation is continuing.