Lac-Mégantic: still work to be done

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/07/2023 (844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You may know Lac-Mégantic as one of the most horrific rail accidents in recent history, where an unattended train rolled into a Quebec town: 63 tank cars derailed spilling six million litres of crude oil, and the resulting explosion and fire killed 47 people.

But for Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) rather bureaucratic lexicon, the accident falls into a type of incident known somewhat antiseptically as an “unplanned and uncontrolled movement.” (This is not meant to suggest that the board doesn’t share the horror of Lac-Mégantic: after all, TSB staff were on the ground for weeks almost immediately after the crash occurred, and understand the pain and suffering on a more visceral level than almost any Canadians.)

A decade after the accident, which occurred 10 years ago on July 6, 2013, the TSB issued a report card on the results of its investigation into the crash and it’s fair to say there’s still significant work to be done. It’s work, by the way, that’s of interest to any city — like Winnipeg — with rail operations well within its municipal boundaries.

As the TSB writes, “As part of our investigation, the TSB issued five recommendations to Transport Canada (TC), three of which — related to improved tank car standards, route planning and analysis, and emergency response assistance plans — have been fully addressed by TC and industry and are now closed. Two recommendations, related to the prevention of uncontrolled movements and enhanced regulatory surveillance, remain open.”

Of all the recommendations, the improvements to tank cars was by far the most significant.

But even after the Lac-Mégantic accident, statistics show “unplanned and uncontrolled movements” aren’t diminishing, and happen far more often than people might expect: the TSB expected, at the rate of such accidents last year, more than 60 such incidents.

The TSB again: “Despite significant safety action taken by TC and the railway industry to reduce the number of unplanned and uncontrolled movements of rail equipment, such events continue to occur.” It’s a serious enough concern that the safety agency has such accidents on their annual watch list of key safety issues in Canada’s transportation sector.

Sometimes, the “uncontrolled movements” involve train cars being shunted around railyards while the air lines that power their brakes are disconnected. Others involve accidents where trains suffer from a loss of control: their brakes simply aren’t effective enough to stop them. A third “uncontrolled movement,” like Lac-Mégantic, involves unattended, uncrewed trains which simply haven’t been secured properly.

Recommendations for protections like automatic parking brakes for train cars have not been implemented, though there have been new rules for brake inspection, guidelines for the number of handbrakes needed to be used on trains parked on grades, and a mandate that, because of cold winter temperatures, “air brake valves on all coal, grain, and tank car unit trains operating above the 37th parallel must be changed when the manufacture or recondition date (whichever is later) is more than 14 years old.” That one just seems like common-sense maintenance.

The bottom line?

The number of uncontrolled movements are not declining: “Furthermore, from 2010 to 2021, there has been no statistically significant trend in the number of occurrences: in other words, no clear improvement. Uncontrolled movements continue to pose a significant risk to the rail transportation system,” the TSB writes. “For the safety of railway workers, the environment, and the public, the TSB wants to see a downward trend in the number of uncontrolled movements.”

And in a city like Winnipeg, that significant risk can be, quite literally, right in your backyard.