(The following story by Simon Tuck appeared on the Globe and Mail website on February 24.)
OTTAWA — Canada’s transportation watchdog is largely pointing the finger at Canadian National Railway Co. for a fatal derailment, in a report that the company wants delayed because it could affect a court case involving the same accident.
The report by the Transportation Safety Board, a draft copy of which was viewed by The Globe and Mail, says the 2003 accident can “most likely” be traced to the failure of a bridge component that was faulty and crushed under the weight of the train. The component, called a cap, was identified as a problem in a 1999 review by CN, the report says, but the TSB could find no evidence that the bridge had been fixed.
Transport Canada, the industry’s regulator, issued three safety-related charges against CN in May, 2004, in connection with the accident. That case is scheduled to go before the B.C. Supreme Court in April.
CN says it is concerned it will not be able to get a fair trial if, by that time, its defence has already been published in the TSB’s final report, which is expected to be released in about a month. In an e-mail to The Globe, the company said it wants the final report delayed “so that the report does not prejudice CN’s right to a full and complete defence.”
CN’s defence does not appear in the report because the company took the unusual step of not taking part in the TSB’s draft-report process.
But CN spokesman Mark Hallman said the company has a different view than the TSB of what caused the derailment on May 14, 2003. “This tragic accident was not caused by structural deficiencies in that bridge,” he said.
The accident, in which two CN employees died, occurred as an 86-car train travelled eastward over a wooden trestle bridge near McBride, B.C., about 500 kilometres northeast of Vancouver. The derailment caused the first six cars to fall six to eight metres into a ravine before fire broke out. The train, travelling from Prince George to Edmonton, was carrying mostly lumber and wood pulp.
CN owns the track and the bridge where the accident occurred. The company owns about 600 of the 1,000 or so trestle bridges in operation in Canada.
The TSB, which acts as an industry watchdog, has rejected the company’s request for a delay. Board spokesman Conrad Bellehumeur said officials from the federal safety agency met last week and decided to release the final report as quickly as possible. He would not comment on the contents of the draft or on the final versions of the report.
The draft document, dated Oct. 28, 2004, says the trestle bridge also suffered from rotten stringers, components important to the structure’s design. It also says that CN’s inspection and maintenance processes were inadequate and that audits of safety procedures were not effective. It finds no fault with either conductor Ken LeQuesne or engineer Art McKay, both of whom were killed in the crash.
The draft also points the finger, to a lesser degree, at Transport Canada. It says the department missed an important opportunity to identify deficiencies in the bridge because it did not compare CN’s maintenance and inspection records with the government’s audit of the company’s procedures. If that had been done, those audits could have raised questions about the safety of the bridge earlier.
Transport Canada spokesman Peter Coyles said his department could not comment on an ongoing case or on a draft report from another body.
In the report, the TSB acknowledges its investigation of the accident was hurt by the destruction of the bridge, the loss of the train’s event recorder and the lack of complete bridge maintenance and inspection records.
Transport Canada also conducted an investigation of the accident, which led to the federal government laying the safety-related charges against CN. The company has been charged under the Railway Safety Act with failing to ensure that rail-line work followed “sound engineering principles.” CN was also charged on two counts under the Canada Labour Code for failing to ensure the safety of employees.
The TSB report also says that trestle bridges have historically been safe and that the board is aware of no other accident involving bridge failure. The report says the board is not overly concerned about further derailments on Canadian trestle bridges.