(The Canadian National Railway issued the following news release on April 30.)
MONTREAL — CN today announced that it has presented its coveted Safe Handling Awards for 2002 to 118 industrial facilities. Sixty-nine of these facilities are located in Canada and 49 are in the United States.
First introduced in 1992, Safe Handling Awards are presented each year to CN customers that load 100 or more tank cars with dangerous goods annually and meet objectives for safe handling and shipping.
“Over the years, CN has established strict standards for the safe handling of dangerous goods we transport for our customers,” says Jean-Jacques Ruest, vice-president, industrial products. “Our customers and employees work together to meet the day-to-day challenges of maintaining a safe operation. The purpose of the Safe Handling Awards is to recognize customers for their outstanding achievements.”
The Safe Handling Awards program complements a series of initiatives aimed at making CN the safest railroad in North America.
“The Safe Handling Awards are an integral part of Responsible Care(R) – an ongoing performance improvement initiative of the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association (CCPA) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), and of which CN is a partner since 1997,” said John Dalzell, vice-president, Risk Management. This is a long-term commitment by CN, which we intend to maximize by applying Responsible Care(R) guiding principles not only to the transportation of regulated goods, but to all company activities.”
Three facilities received a special mention for having earned Safe Handling Awards for the eleventh year in a row: PIONEER (Dalhousie, N.B.), Enersul Operations Inc. (Benbow, Alta.) and BP Canada Energy (Elspeth, Alta.).
CN has also presented Corporate Safe Handling Awards and Continuous Improvement Awards since 1999. Corporate Safe Handling Awards are presented to companies whose combined facilities ship more than 5,000 loaded tank cars of dangerous goods and meet Safe Handling Awards criteria. In 2002, these awards were presented to BASF Corporation, BP, The Dow Chemical Company, E.I. du Pont de Nemours, Husky Oil Ltd., Mississippi Chemical Nitrogen Inc., PIONEER and Ultramar Ltee. The Continuous Improvement Awards are presented to companies that show outstanding improvement over their previous years’ record. The 2002 recipients are: SUNCOR ENERGY PRODUCTS (Sarnia, Ont.) and Formosa Plastic Corp. (Baton Rouge, La.).
Canadian National Railway Company spans Canada and mid-America, from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico, serving the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the key cities of Toronto, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., Green Bay, Wis., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, St. Louis, and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America.
A list of the winners is available on the CN website as a PDF:http://www.cn.ca/PDF/SafeHandlingAwards2002_en.pdf