You are here

crude-by-rail

Trump and the Rail Industry Had a Great First Year Together

By Justin Mikulka - DeSmog Blog, December 29, 2017

The election of Donald Trump was a big win for the oil and rail industries. Shortly after the election, Edward Hamberger, CEO of the trade group the Association of American Railroads, addressed a conference in New York City, noting that “the policy landscape in Washington, D.C., dramatically shifted on Election Day.”

The trade publication Railway Age also reported Hamberger saying that “Washington leaders can be powerful change agents in fixing a broken regulatory system.”

Of course when the top rail lobbyist talks about “fixing” a broken regulatory system, what he means is moving to a system where the rail industry regulates itself — which is why the rail industry is so fond of President Trump. And why the American public should worry.

You are going to see a lot of additional relief from these horrible regulations that are killing our country,” President Trump said in October of 2017.

Together, Trump and the rail lobbyists had great success this year in stopping new safety regulations that would make oil trains safer and deadly rail accidents less likely, but the biggest triumph was probably changing the way the rail industry itself is regulated.

Campaign For Railroad Workers Facing Trial For Lac-Mégantic Wreck

By Steve Zeltser - Work Week Radio, December 26, 2017

Listen here: link

Pacifica KPFA WorkWeek Radio looks at a railroad workers defense campaign taking place in Quebec , Canada. In (2013) a major train wreck took place in Lac-Mégantic when a run away train with loaded with highly dangerous fuel smashed into the Lac-Mégantic city center killing 47 people. The company Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) and the Canadian government blamed three workers for this catastrophic wreck.

USW Locomotive engineer Tom Harding is one of three former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) railroad employees along with operations manager Jean Demaître and railway traffic controller Richard Labrie who were each charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death in connection with the deadly derailment and explosions at Lac-Mégantic.

With growing rail and transit disasters in Washinton, New York City and throughout the country are the workers really to blame? We look at the deregulation and the attack on rail workers and health and safety conditions by railroad bosses. On January 4th there will be protests at Canadian consulates in the US and around the world to demand freedom for these railroad workers.

WorkWeek is joined with Railroad Workers United RWU and Workers Solidarity Action Network WSAN member Mark Burrows who is a retired SMART 1433 Canadian Pacific railroader and is helping to organize the defense campaign. We also interview Fritz Elder who is a veteran Locomotive engineer, and chair of the Lac-Mégantic rail workers defense committee and a special rep for Railroad Workers United RWU.

As a former rail engineer, I need to speak out

By James Goodrich, Reposted from Transport Workers Solidarity Committee - December 26, 2017

Some 25 people are dead and other 25 missing as a result of what happened last Saturday in Lac-Mégantic — and investigators and media are looking for answers as to what caused this accident. Among other things, they are looking into railway-industry operating practices.

I used to work for one of Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway’s predecessor companies, Iron Road Railways, as well as two other railroads in Colorado and New England. I have been a freight conductor, yardmaster and locomotive engineer — and I need to speak out.

In my view, what happened in Lac-Mégantic is linked to the continent-wide, 30-year erosion of rules, procedures, equipment and infrastructure in the rail industry, and a culture of corporate acquisition by non-railroad interests that has led to deferred maintenance and deep cost cutting.

The first fact to consider is that this train in Lac-Mégantic had 72 cars of oil on it — and a single crew member. That equals 46,285 barrels of oil in cars that carry approximately 102,000 litres each. By contrast, the tanker trailer you see on the highway is carrying about 34,000 litres or 214 barrels of product. Thirty years ago, most trains had five-man crews — three on the head of the train and two on the rear in the caboose. Now there are mostly two man crews on the head end, with few exceptions, one of those apparently being the MMA.

There are many hazardous materials that cannot move on the highway and thus move by rail. This train was by definition a “Hazmat” train, and yet I notice that media reports that I have seen in the U.S. have reported that there were 5- and 10-mile-per-hour track-speed limits on the rails in the area where the train was parked. Five miles per hour (or 8 kilometres per hour) is an extremely slow order speed for rail, even in areas between Nantes and Lac-Mégantic where there are major differences in elevation above sea level. Even in the Rocky Mountains, rail beds are carefully designed so that track speeds are rarely less than 15 mph. The only other reason I can think of for a speed this slow would be known problems with rail track in the Lac-Mégantic area. I have only seen order speeds of 5 mph twice — after flash floods in Colorado, and in nearly abandoned Boston yards where no rail maintenance was being done at all.

This is not just an issue for rural Canada. On the Springfield Terminal Railroad (now Pan Am), I used to pull cars of hydrocyanic acid and chlorine through the suburbs of Boston. Policy-makers should take a close look at the emergency-response guidelines for the evacuation radius of those materials. Imagine the implications for accidents in major cities.

Background on how United Steelworkers rail workers — locomotive engineer Tom Harding and train controller Richard Labrie have been scapegoated

Reposted from Transport Workers Solidarity Committee - December 31, 2017

August 28, 2014 – Thomas Walsh, Tom Harding’s lawyer and Daniel Roy, USW District 5 director, referring to the TSB report, hold a press conference demanding that the charges against Harding and Labrie be dropped. “It`s time to stop using workers as scapegoats,” said Roy. Subsequently the Quebec prosecutor refuses to drop the charges.

Timeline of events before and after the July 6, 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster

http://hardingdefense.org/timeline-of-events-relating-to-charges/

January 2003 – The Montreal Maine & Atlantic railway (MMA) is controlled by Ed Burkhardt, President and CEO of Rail World, who cuts wages by 40%, started a series of layoffs. From 2003 to 2013, the MMA has higher accident rates than other North American railroads according to the FRA.

2010 – Burkhardt moves to begin single crew member rail operations on the MMA.

2012 – Canadian Conservative government Federal Minister of Transport Denis Lebel approves the request of the Montreal Maine & Atlantic railway (MMA) to specifically haul volatile crude oil with a “crew” of one as a cost-cutting measure.

March 27, 2013 – 14 of 94 tankers of volatile crude oil in a CP train derailed near Parkers prairie, MN. 30,000 gallons of crude is released at the derailment site.

June 11, 2013 – Frontenac, Quebec, east of Lac-Mégantic, an MMA locomotive spills 3,400 US gallons of diesel oil.

July 6, 2013 –An uncrewed runaway 74-car oil train carrying volatile crude oil from the Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota to the Irving oil refinery in New Brunswick, Maine derails in downtown Lac-Mégantic and explodes, killing 47 people, destroying the downtown area and dumping millions of litres of oil into the soil and the lake.

The Trump Admin’s Misleading Justifications for Repealing This Oil Train Safety Rule

By Justin Mikulka - DeSmog Blog, December 10, 2017

On December 4, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced it would repeal a critical safety regulation for modern braking systems on the same oil trains which have derailed, spilled oil, caught fire, exploded, and even killed dozens in multiple high profile accidents in recent years. 

The regulation, released by the DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in mid 2015, required that oil trains have modern electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) braking systems by 2021. However, in the latest iteration of its review process for this rule, the DOT is now doing an about-face.

Why would the DOT, as the regulator responsible for protecting 25 million people who live along railroad tracks carrying oil trains, reverse course on a technology hailed as “the greatest safety improvement” for modern trains? Let's take a look at corporate influence on the regulatory process.

In 2015, shortly after these regulations were announced, Matthew Rose, CEO of oil-by-rail leader BNSF, stated that the rail industry would not accept the requirement for ECP brakes, telling an audience at the annual Energy Information Administration conference that “the only thing we don’t like about [the new regulation] is the electronic braking” and “this rule will have to be changed in the future.”

Two years later, Rose appears to have been granted his wish.

How Northwest Communities Are Stopping Big Oil Projects

By Sarah van Gelder - Yes! Magazine, December 7, 2017

“This is more fun than I’ve ever had in my life,” Don Steinke told me when I called him last week. Steinke, a retired science teacher, is a leader in the fight to stop what would be the nation’s largest oil-by-rail terminal. Last week, the state agency in charge of reviewing the application voted unanimously to oppose the terminal—a vote that could spell the end of the project.

First proposed in 2013 by Vancouver Energy, the terminal would have been built along the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington; 360,000 barrels of oil a day were to be brought by rail and then loaded on ships for transport to West Coast refineries. But the project quickly ran into local opposition.

The power of local organizing to stop this project got my attention. The opposition is fueled both by local impacts on water and air, and by the fact that building new oil-transport infrastructure is a terrible idea at a time when we must phase out the use of fossil fuel if we are to avert climate catastrophe.

Communities throughout the Northwest, often led by Native American tribes, have been stopping one project after another.

Just last year, for example, what would have been the largest coal export terminal in the United States was cancelled in response to opposition from the Lummi Tribe, which holds treaty fishing rights to the nearby waters. The Otter Creek mine in southeast Montana was also canceled in the face of opposition from the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and area ranchers. Early this year, Washington state Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark rejected a lease for a coal export facility in Longview, Washington, along the Columbia River; a county hearing examiner later denied the plant shoreline permits. Also this year, plans for a large oil terminal on the Washington coast were set back by a state Supreme Court ruling. The proposed terminal, which was opposed by the Quinault Tribe, would have shipped 17.8 million barrels of oil a year.

Seattle-based think tank Sightline Institute calls this opposition the “thin green line” separating tar sands oil, Powder River Basin coal, and Bakken fracked gas and oil from Asian markets. If these projects go through, Sightline estimates, they will release the carbon equivalent of five KXL pipelines.

How are these local groups able to succeed in the face of the power and money of huge energy corporations? What is it about place-based work that succeeds?

Gov’t presses frame-up of rail workers in Canada

By John Steele - The Militant, December 11, 2017

SHERBROOKE, Quebec — Stephen Callaghan, a self-styled rail safety expert and the prosecution’s star witness, took the stand Nov. 21 in the Canadian government and rail bosses’ frame-up against locomotive engineer Tom Harding. Harding is charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death flowing from the July 2013 oil train derailment and explosion that killed 47 people and burned out Lac-Mégantic’s downtown core.

On trial with Harding, a member of United Steelworkers Local 1976, is train controller Richard Labrie, a fellow union member, as well as former low-level Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway operations manager Jean Demaitre. If declared guilty they could face life in prison.

Callaghan is a former inspector for the federal Transportation Safety Board. He also was a supervisor for the Quebec, North Shore and Labrador Railway, where he helped implement, for the first time in Canada, one-person “crew” operations. The only other railroad to get dispensation from the government to do so was Montreal, Maine and Atlantic.

Following the Lac-Mégantic disaster, Callaghan was hired by the Quebec provincial cops to investigate. The charges against Harding, Labrie and Demaitre were based on his report.

Accompanied by charts, graphs and photographs, Callaghan told the jury that the disaster was caused by Harding’s failure to activate a sufficient number of handbrakes before he left the train unattended.

Harding had driven the 72-car oil tanker train and parked on the main line in Nantes, as was the normal procedure on a grade above Lac-Mégantic. As he had done many times before, he set a number of hand brakes — he said he set seven that evening — and left the lead locomotive running with its independent air brakes on, confident the combination meant the train was well secured.

While Harding slept, a fire broke out in the stack of the lead engine. Volunteer firefighters turned off the locomotive to douse the flames. They left when a Montreal, Maine and Atlantic official on the scene told them that everything was in order. Harding, who was called about the fire, volunteered to come back and make sure everything was OK. He was told that was not necessary and he should go back to sleep. With the locomotive engine shut down, its air brakes bled out, and the train rolled down the hill into Lac-Mégantic, derailed and exploded.

Wakened by the explosion, Harding risked his life to help firefighters detach and move a number of tanker cars before they could explode. Many in Lac-Mégantic consider Harding a hero and are convinced that the top bosses of now defunct Montreal, Maine and Atlantic should have been charged — along with high officials of Ottawa’s agency Transport Canada, who had OK’d one-person operation and the erosion of safety on the rail line to boost company profits.

New evidence at trial exposes gov’t frame-up of rail workers

By John Steele - The Militant, November 27, 2017

As the parade of witnesses for the prosecution continues in the frame-up trial of locomotive engineer Tom Harding and train controller Richard Labrie in the July 2013 derailment and fire that caused 47 deaths in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, more facts, many elicited in cross-examination, are pointing to Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway bosses and the federal government’s Transport Canada as responsible.

Harding and Labrie, members of United Steelworkers Local 1976, face potential life sentences for “criminal negligence causing death,” as does Jean Demaitre, a former low-ranking company operations manager.

Harding is the main target of the frame-up. Boss and government officials claim the cause of the disaster was that the unionist didn’t set enough hand brakes on the 72-car oil train, allowing it to roll into town and explode.

But the hand brakes weren’t the way the train was supposed to be secured. Under company policy, Harding left the lead engine running with its air brakes engaged.

Montreal, Maine and Atlantic bosses had gotten special dispensation from Transport Canada to run their trains with a one-person “crew.” So Harding, who had worked 12 hours, was required to get some sleep before completing his run in the morning.

What happened next was a fire broke out on the engine. The bosses knew the unit had problems. Francois Daigle, one of the three engineers, including Harding, who did the run through Lac-Mégantic, testified at the trial that he told company officials, including Demaitre, that the engine was belching black smoke and should be taken out of service. His concerns were ignored, he said.

Another prosecution witness, André Turcotte, the taxi driver who took Harding to his hotel, testified that the engine was spitting smoke and oil droplets. He said Harding told him the locomotive was being forced to work too hard, but the bosses said to keep going and to park the engine and leave it idling. Turcotte said Harding commented bitterly that the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic never checked their locomotives.

The prosecution called a number of firemen who put out the flames to testify. They reported that they were unaware the train was hauling crude oil. They said the train was not moving after the fire was extinguished, and that the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic official on site told them they could leave, assuring them everything was in hand. Harding, who had received a call about the fire, was told he wasn’t needed when he offered to go help out. The railway boss left, and, without power, the locomotive’s air brakes bled out and the train rolled into Lac-Mégantic and blew up.

Sébastien Pépin, a track maintenance foreman for Canadian Pacific Railway who witnessed the fire, testified he was astonished to see the engine left running with no crew around.

The train was equipped with an automatic brakes system that would turn on the air brakes on all the cars on the train, which would have prevented the train from moving no matter what happened to the engine. But Montreal, Maine and Atlantic bosses forbid workers from using this system. Whenever all the air brakes are set it takes time when restarting the train to wait for the brakes to bleed out. And, to make sure that all of them were released would require the one crew member to walk the entire train and check each brake. This would take time, and cost the bosses money.

As more of these facts come out, they raise questions of who is responsible for the disaster — the engineer who bitterly carried out the bosses’ order or the company that put profits before safety.

This has long been the general sentiment in Lac-Mégantic itself, where many people consider Harding a hero. After the fire broke out, he got out of bed and ran to the site, helping firefighters uncouple oil cars that hadn’t started burning. People there think the wrong party is in the dock.

As of Nov. 10 the prosecution had presented 20 of its 37 scheduled witnesses. Superior Court Judge Gaétan Dumas warned the jury that the trial, taking place in Sherbrooke, Quebec, which was projected to end Dec. 21, might continue into January 2018.

Railworkers face frame-up trial in Lac-Mégantic disaster

By Michel Prairie and John Steele - The Militant, October 23, 2017

The state began presenting its frame-up case against locomotive engineer Tom Harding and train traffic controller Richard Labrie, members of United Steelworkers Local 1976, in court here Oct. 2. The two unionists are charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death from the July 6, 2013, derailment and explosion of a runaway 72-car Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway oil train in downtown Lac-Mégantic. In addition to the multiple deaths, the disaster wiped out most of the city’s downtown. Also on trial is former low-level company manager Jean Demaitre.

All three are fighting the charges. They could face life in prison.

Some 50 people attended the first day of the trial, including several activists from the Citizens’ and Groups Coalition for Rail Safety in Lac-Mégantic, and others who came to show their support for the rail workers.

“Why isn’t Edward Burkhardt, the MMA CEO in the courtroom?” said Lac-Mégantic coalition spokesperson Robert Bellefleur. “What about Transport Canada, which gave the MMA special permission to run the train with a crew of just one person, Tom Harding?”

“I don’t want answers from the three men on trial,” Jean Paradis, told the media. The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic executives are “in the [United] States. Transport Canada has let those cheap companies run railroads for less money, for making more money instead of acting for the safety of the people. Safety should come first, not third.”

Paradis barely escaped with his life as the massive fireball from the explosion that night engulfed the Musi-Café where a majority of those killed were incinerated, including three of his close friends.

“The three accused are victims of the system. The ones at the end of the line are always targeted,” Richard Custeau told the Journal de Montreal, explaining his hopes that one day those higher up in the hierarchy of the rail industry will be punished. Custeau’s brother Réal was killed at the Musi-Café.

“The MMA was a railroad bought cheap by investors, in order to increase its profits and then sell it,” Harding’s lawyer Thomas Walsh explained to a crowded hallway full of reporters at the lunch break. “Today most of the same people are running its replacement. Only the name has changed. Profits are being made at the expense of safety. Transport Canada looked the other way.”

Many in Lac-Mégantic consider Harding a hero. On the night of the disaster, he parked the train on the main line on a grade at the village of Nantes about 7 miles from Lac-Mégantic, left the lead engine running to power the locomotive air brakes, set hand brakes on seven tanker cars and took a taxi to a Lac-Mégantic hotel to get his night’s rest, as he had done many times before. As he slept a small fire broke out on the lead engine due to cost-cutting inadequate maintenance by Montreal, Maine and Atlantic.

When local firefighters arrived to put out the flames, they shut down the locomotive and, unknowingly, the locomotive air brakes. Harding received a call about the fire and offered to go to the train to make sure everything was OK. He was told that it was all taken care of and to go back to sleep. A short time later the train began to roll towards the city.

Awoken by the explosion, Harding rushed to the site, risking his life helping firefighters detach and move a number of unexploded tanker cars, preventing an even worse disaster.

Over and Over, the Government’s own witnesses prove that Harding and Labrie weren’t the cause of the Lac-Mégantic Wreck

By staff - The Evidence is in: The Train Crew did not Cause the Lac-Mégantic Tragedy, October 30, 2017

Two days after a runaway train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, exploding and killing 47 people, Transport Canada inspector Alain Richer found another train belonging to the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) railway parked in nearby Vachon hadn’t been properly secured.

Richer, now retired, testified Monday at the trial of Thomas Harding, 56, Jean Demaître, 53, and Richard Labrie, 59. The three former MMA employees are charged with 47 counts each of criminal negligence causing death in connection with the 2013 rail disaster.

According to Richer, when he and another Transport Canada employee went to inspect the 89-car train, they noticed it had been secured with only five handbrakes.

“They hadn’t met the minimum required,” Richer testified.

He said MMA’s own internal regulations showed the train should have been secured with double that number of handbrakes.

Pages

The Fine Print I:

Disclaimer: The views expressed on this site are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) unless otherwise indicated and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s, nor should it be assumed that any of these authors automatically support the IWW or endorse any of its positions.

Further: the inclusion of a link on our site (other than the link to the main IWW site) does not imply endorsement by or an alliance with the IWW. These sites have been chosen by our members due to their perceived relevance to the IWW EUC and are included here for informational purposes only. If you have any suggestions or comments on any of the links included (or not included) above, please contact us.

The Fine Print II:

Fair Use Notice: The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of scientific, environmental, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc.

It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal or technical advice.