(By Andy Riga, The Gazette August 27)
AMT grilled. T.M.R. mayor worried about danger in Mount Royal tunnel
The AMT plans to buy 20 new dual-powered Bombardier locomotives.
Photograph by: Courtesy Bombardier, The Gazette
MONTREAL – Town of Mount Royal Mayor Vera Danyluk wants assurances the Agence métropolitaine de transport’s plan to run locomotives carrying diesel through the tunnel under Mount Royal won’t endanger the lives of commuters.
“What we’re looking for is to be reassured that people are going to be safe if there is a fire in the tunnel and people have to be evacuated,” Danyluk told The Gazette yesterday. “There’s a danger of fire or even smoke. You don’t even need a big fire.
All you need is something that creates a lot of smoke and if you can’t get people out, people are going to die.”
Danyluk said she will raise the issue at tonight’s meeting of the island-wide agglomeration council and ask the city of Montreal to press the AMT, a provincial agency, to provide detailed answers to safety questions.
Last year, the AMT, which operates five train lines in the Montreal region, announced a $236-million deal to buy 20 new Bombardier locomotives. They are dual-powered, meaning they operate under diesel or electric power.
The AMT is to get the first of the locomotives in 2011. It will use some on a new Montreal-Repentigny/Mascouche line. known as the Train de l’Est. The train will travel through the tunnel. The locomotives will run on diesel outside and electricity in the tunnel, though they will still be carrying diesel in the tunnel.
The AMT has also said it may alter the route of another line – Blainville/St. Jérôme – so it reaches downtown via the tunnel, pulled by the dual-powered locomotives.
The Mount Royal tunnel is currently used by the AMT’s Deux Montagnes line, which is electrically powered.
AMT spokesperson Martine Rouette said concerns about the Mount Royal tunnel’s safety are misguided.
To ensure the tunnel is safe for fuel-laden locomotives, the AMT is working with Canadian National Railway, which owns the tunnel, and Montreal’s fire department, she said.
Rouette said modifications to the tunnel have been made related to lighting and communication, a new evacuation plan has been put in place, and a risk-assessment study has been conducted to confirm the tunnel can handle the locomotives.
But Rouette said “for security reasons” the AMT will not make the study public, nor will it disclose specifics about tunnel modifications or evacuation plans.
Rouette said the Train de l’Est is expected to begin operations next year, before the AMT gets the locomotives.
It’s unclear what type of locomotives the AMT will use in the line’s first year but they, too, are expected to carry diesel fuel.
No one at the Montreal fire department was available to discuss the issue yesterday, a spokesperson said.
Danyluk, whose town is close to the mouth of the tunnel, said her concern was prompted by the AMT’s recent refusal to provide documents related to tunnel security that had been requested by environmental activist Avrom Shtern under access-to-information laws.
“The (safety) question has to be asked” and detailed answers must be made public, Danyluk said. “Everyone who has citizens using the train, whether they’re in boroughs or reconstituted cities, has to ask the question.
“All of our citizens would be exposed to a risk if in fact there is one.”
In June, Shtern had asked the AMT whether fire-safety standards had been improved in the tunnel and whether any safety studies had been done related to using the locomotives in the tunnel. In a July 16 letter to Shtern, AMT vice-president Michel Fortier said the AMT has undertaken work to improve safety in the tunnel. He said “special arrangements were made in the design of diesel tanks” after discussions with Montreal’s fire department. But Fortier said the AMT would not provide documents, nor confirm or deny the existence of any studies.
The AMT has a duty to disclose all information it has related to the safety of passengers, Shtern said.
He noted that New Jersey Transit, which is also buying dual-powered locomotives from Bombardier, has made public detailed information about upgrades required to more safely move fuel-laden locomotives through tunnels.
“I cannot think of a reason why there shouldn’t be a similar approach by the AMT,” Shtern said. “There have been tunnel fires in other parts of the world – this is a real risk, it’s not imaginary.”
Shtern, transportation spokesperson for the Green Coalition environmental group, said the tunnel has been used by locomotives carrying diesel fuel in the past, though that practice was stopped in 1990. “Since then, there has been the recognition that there is a need for more safety.”
Glen Fisher, a railway planner and consultant and former Canadian Pacific executive, said it would go against North American norms to operate trains carrying diesel fuel in the Mount Royal tunnel.
“You need ventilation, water for firefighters, an escape tunnel – the Mount Royal tunnel has none of them,” Fisher said. “The risk is you’d execute 1,800 people – all the passengers on a train – if you had a fire in the tunnel. The tunnel is five kilometres long and that’s a hell of a long way for people to flee in the event of a fire without getting gassed.”
A derailment is “a small risk, but it’s always a risk and if it happens in the tunnel it’s fatal.” Any ensuing fire would create “smoke and fumes that would kill people. It’d be a disaster.”