Probe into 2024 Elie derailment sparks wheel warning

The investigation into a 17-car train derailment near Elie last year has helped to boost rail safety across North America.

The probe determined the incident was caused when a metal wheel on a rail car suddenly broke apart.

A Transportation Safety Board report, released Tuesday, said while the sudden failure of a wheel has caused four or five derailments in the United States in recent years, the 2024 incident marked the first time it happened in Canada.

“It was a catastrophic failure,” safety board investigator Reinhard Sommerfeld said on Tuesday, noting the rail cars were carrying grain and not hazardous material when the derailment occurred.

“We know what caused it, but we don’t know how it happened. All we know is it somehow was impacted during its life span. That’s really all we know. Thank God it wasn’t worse.”

Sommerfeld said shortly after the safety board shared its report with the Association of American Railroads, that organization put out a letter to rail companies and manufacturers in which it warned them to be careful about anything hitting the wheels “anywhere along the wheel’s life cycle: from manufacturer, to wheel mount shop, to railway line, to repair shop.”

“Extreme care must be taken during the handling, transport, loading and unloading of wheels and wheel sets. If any metal-to-metal contact occurs on the wheel plate between the hub and the rim, the wheel must be identified as scrap.”

Sommerfeld said because that recommendation came out right after the safety board report was sent to them, “I can say it came out because of it.”

The eastbound CN Rail train, which had left the Canwheat loading facility in Bloom, west of Portage, on March 5, 2024, shortly before midnight, was going about 88 km/hr when 17 cars left the tracks and the train suddenly braked to a halt at 12:26 a.m. There were no injuries and no rail cars split open.

Sommerfeld said investigators were able to recover about 90 per cent of what was left of the wheel at the derailment site so it could be studied. That’s when they discovered the wheel had been dented at some point. It created a crack through it that resulted in the failure.

He said the wheel was manufactured by the Griffin Wheel Co. in Winnipeg in November 2022, and was in service for about 19,000 kilometres. The report noted a paper label affixed to the wheel by the manufacturer was partially torn off so “it can therefore be inferred that the damage occurred after the wheel was manufactured.”

“It was a fairly new wheel,” Sommerfeld said. “These wheels can be on a car for 40 years.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca