Events leading to runaway train revealed

Documents shine light on fateful hours before Lac-Mégantic disaster

An insufficient number of brakes applied, rundown equipment, and an inspection by flashlight conducted by an unqualified employee.

Those were some of the factors that led to a runaway oil train derailing in Lac-Mégantic last summer, according to court documents made public Friday.

The information is contained in a request the Surete du Quebec filed in Quebec Court last July to obtain a search warrant for Montreal, Maine & Atlantic’s offices in Farnham. The SQ was looking for evidence of criminal negligence causing death and criminally negligent homicide by MMA directors or employees, the warrant said.

MMA and three of its employees — engineer Thomas Harding, rail-traffic controller Richard Labrie and train-operations manager Jean Demaitre — were charged in May with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death.

None of the allegations contained in the search warrant request has been proven in court.

Parts of the warrant request unsealed Friday had been made public in February, but the document had been heavily redacted. Postmedia News and the Journal de Montreal went to court to have the redacted portions of the document made public. Now, for the first time, Harding’s actions on the night of the derailment have been made public, as have details of the steps taken by other MMA employees that night.

According to statements given to police, on July 5, the day before the derailment, one of the train’s five locomotives had not been working properly. It had been emitting “abnormal” smoke as it carried 72 cars of crude oil from Farnham to Nantes, the warrant said.

An MMA inspector and Transport Canada inspector had examined the train cars but not the locomotives in Farnham on July 5, and only identified two minor problems that could be repaired, Yves Gendreau, MMA’s manager of railway-equipment inspection, told the SQ.

Parked for the night at Nantes — about 13 kilometres from Lac-Mégantic — the same locomotive was spewing a mist of oil droplets into theair. Ataxi driver who went to Nantes to pick up Harding told police he had to turn on his windshield wipers to clean oil from the windshield before he could start driving his car. He also told police Harding had oil all over his arms when he got into the taxi.

Harding told SQ investigators he parked the train in Nantes around 11:05 p.m. on the railway’s main line, activated the train’s air-brake system, and then got out of the train to apply seven hand brakes. MMA’s own guidelines required at least nine hand brakes to be set on a train carrying between 70 and 79 cars, the warrant request said. An expert report prepared for the SQ estimated that hand brakes should have been applied to at least 15 cars, as well as on five locomotives and another car.

Harding told police he turned off the train’s air brake system to do a brake test, and then turned off all the engines but the one on the lead locomotive — the one that the oil droplets were coming from. According to the warrant, Harding left the locomotive engine running to keep the train’s air system going and to avoid having to do another brake test four hours later.

Other MMA employees told police company policy was to shutdown all the locomotives at night to conserve fuel, and locomotives were only supposed to be left running in the winter when freezing could cause problems.

Harding left the train parked, unattended, and headed to Lac-Mégantic by taxi. The warrant said Harding arrived in Lac-Mégantic around 11:45 p.m.

A fire broke out in the locomotive around 11:35 p.m. Firefighters from Nantes shut off the engine while extinguishing the fire, which also turned off the 72-car train’s air-brake system. That left only seven hand brakes securing the train, which was parked on a hill.

When MMA rail-traffic controller Richard Labrie learned of the fire, he sent track-maintenance foreman Jean Noel Busque to Nantes to check things out with the local firefighters. Harding was heard on MMA’s internal communication system offering to go, but Labrie told him to go to sleep instead.

Several MMA employees told the SQ that Busque was not qualified to inspect the locomotive nor to decide whether it was secure after the fire. Labrie told police Busque was the only employee available to go to Nantes. MMA’s internal communication system recorded a discussion about sending another employee, “Dede,” but that person was on vacation, the warrant said.

According to the warrant, Busque told police that, using a flashlight, he looked around the locomotive but did not go inside. He also told police that he repeated information from the firefighters to Labrie. That information included the fact that the firefighters had turned off the “breaker,” Busque told police. According to Busque’s statement, the railway controller confirmed that the firefighters had acted correctly.

The train was left unattended again around 12:50 a.m. A few minutes later, video surveillance cameras showed the train rolling along the tracks toward Lac-Mégantic. A local firefighter spotted the train about five kilometres from Nantes and called 911. Witnesses told police the train was travelling at an estimated speed of 100 km/h as it entered Lac-Mégantic around 1:15 a.m., the warrant said.