(The following article was posted on the Edmonton Sun website on October 3.)
EDMONTON — Despite another derailment on the weekend, CN claims its safety record is actually better this year than last year.
CN spokesman Jim Feeny said yesterday that there have been 1.4 accidents per million train miles so far, compared with 1.7 during the same period last year.
“CN’s accident ratio is substantially lower than the Canadian industry average,” he said.
In the latest incident, two tanker cars loaded with propane and four empty cars went off the tracks at the Walker Yard at 97 Street and 127 Avenue around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
The cars remained upright and no propane leaked, Feeny said.
No one was injured and the mishap caused only a minimal impact on operations.
Despite the string of derailments this summer, Feeny says the public has no reason to lose confidence in the railroad.
“I think our customers understand the position we’re in,” he said. “We have had a lot of accidents, a couple of them serious, and are fully engaged in looking at our safety procedures.
“We’re not finding a common denominator but we’re going to go through them in great detail to see if any lessons can be learned.”
The railroad’s troubles began with an Aug. 3 derailment at Lake Wabamun that dumped an estimated 700,000 litres of bunker C oil and a toxic wood preservative into the lake.
Two days later, a CN train derailed near Squamish, B.C., spilling 40,000 litres of sodium hydroxide into a river.
Last Tuesday, a CN locomotive leaked about 30 litres of diesel fuel and 10 empty freight cars went off the rails near New Sarepta, 48 km southeast of Edmonton.