Train derailments produce promises of action but is anything really happening? Goldhawk wonders as he whistles for someone to pay attention, in his latest, regular column.
Two weeks ago, a freight train derailed near the Pickering GO transit station, just east of Toronto. The mishap involved an eastbound train hauling three non-operating locomotives as well as nine cars carrying plastics, lumber and potash. The lumber spilled onto the track just a few feet from the giant parking lot at the Pickering station.
One car was carrying a chemical used to make polyurethane foam. The chemical can be toxic to humans but there was no spill. It was a lucky break. It was also lucky the derailment happened at 3 PM, minutes before the afternoon rush hour of commuter trains was about to begin.
Now the really worrisome part. It was the sixth derailment in six years along this stretch of track. Accident number five had happened just two months earlier.
Marc Hallman, CN Director of Communications and Public Affairs, quotes national statistics to demonstrate rail safety.
“CN main-track accidents in Canada are down 70 per cent year-to-date in 2010, compared to the same period of 2009. Last year, CN main-track accidents in Canada were down more than 35 per cent from 2008. Clearly, the trend is going in the right direction,” he said.
Things are definitely not going in the right direction for worried officials in Pickering and Durham Region. Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan, Regional Chairman Roger Anderson and Pickering-Scarborough East MP Dan McTeague are hoping for a meeting with Transport Minister John Baird in the next few days.
Two years ago, a rail safety report was tabled in the House of Commons. There was little or no news coverage, despite the fact the report was presented not long after two CN derailments in Ontario - one in Burlington and one near Brampton.
Four years ago, in December 2006, then-Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon set up an advisory panel to review the Railway Safety Act. That came on the heels of a series of rail accidents.
In August of 2005, a CN train derailed near Squamish, British Columbia. More than 40,000 litres of caustic soda was spilled--it destroyed the fish population in the Cheakamus River.
That was the first of four derailments before the end of the year.
Then on June 29, 2006, another CN train derailed near Lillooet, B.C. Two crew members were killed.
These accidents were reason enough for Cannon to set up an advisory panel to study rail statistics up to the end of 2006. But it only got worse. From January 7, 2007 to March 5, 2008, there were 15 major rail accidents--more than in the previous six years.
Rob Merrifield, the Minister of State for Transportation, told me that rail safety is currently considered a priority, including a re-examination of what's known in the rail industry as SMS--Safety Management Systems. SMS was implemented in a 1999 amendment to the Railway Safety Act. It allows rail companies to set up their own safety systems. Fair enough. But that also meant that Transport Canada would no longer directly supervise rail safety with the railways and would no longer conduct spot audits of safety measures being used by the rail companies. Merrifield told me that everything is now being reviewed--even the SMS.
Families who live along the tracks in Durham Region no doubt are hoping that rail safety improvements will happen soon.
Zoomers in the Toronto area remember the Big One; the Mississauga train derailment and massive explosions that forced 200,000 residents from their homes. No one was killed in that disaster. Once again, we were lucky. We need more than just luck, don't we?
Goldhawk is fighting back to create a SAFE MARKETPLACE for all Canadian consumers. 
