SECOND DERAILMENT
Oil tanker cars burn near Guernsey
GUERNSEY It is “way too early” to know the cause of the second fiery train derailment in two months near the Saskatchewan community of Guernsey, says the head of the province’s safety agency.
Marlo Pritchard, president of the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, acknowledged that a pair of similar incidents in a matter of weeks is troublesome, but would not commit to action that would stop trains from using the section of rail line.
A train carrying 104 cars on a track owned by CP Railway derailed Thursday around 6:15 a.m. along Highway 16 near Guernsey. According to Pritchard, 31 cars derailed and 12 were still on fire by mid-afternoon.
There were no reports of injuries or fatalities.
“It is a concern that two derailments happened in that vicinity, absolutely, but we’ll have to wait for the investigation and comment at that time,” he said.
Hours after the derailment, the federal government ordered lower speed limits for all trains carrying large amounts of dangerous goods. Transport Minister Marc Garneau said trains carrying 20 or more cars of dangerous goods must travel at no more than 40 kilometres per hour across the country, except in metropolitan areas, where the speed limit will be 32 kilometres per hour.
Those speed limits are half as fast as limits currently listed on Transport Canada’s website.
“This will be put into effect for the next 30 days. We could shorten that — we’re looking for the causes to see if there is a common pattern — or we could lengthen it depending on how things are progressing,” Garneau said.
“I realize there will be an affect on the economy of the country because our trains move important goods across the country, but it is very, very important that we not sacrifice safety.”
CP Rail president and CEO Keith Creel, in a statement, said the company “fully supports this action and it has been implemented effective immediately … Until we better understand the facts relating to (Thursday’s) incident, it is prudent to operate with an abundance of caution.”
The derailment was roughly 10 kilometres from where a train carrying crude derailed and burned along Highway 16 between the communities of Guernsey and Plunkett on Dec. 9, 2019. In that incident, 33 oil tank cars and one hopper car left the tracks and 1.5 million litres of oil leaked.
According to Reeve Jack Gibney in a brief interview, a fire following Thursday’s derailment came within less than 500 metres of the Hamlet of Guernsey.
Gibney, the reeve of the RM of Usborne (which includes Guernsey), said he had “no reaction yet” to Thursday’s derailment. The reeve said repairs on the rail line had been done weeks prior to December’s incident, which he said has left him puzzled over derailments “happening left and right.”
Gibney said people in the community — around 85 of them — were using the town hall as a gathering place before they were evacuated. Pritchard said a local evacuation was ordered because of concerns about air quality.
“If the smoke situation changes, I’m sure the residents will be allowed to go home,” he said.
Logan Fisher, a resident of Guernsey, said in an interview that it’s “unsettling ” to have two derailments in such a short time period.
It “would have been pretty devastating” if the derailment took place in the community, he added.
Patty Prentice said she was driving to work just after the derailment and initially thought she was coming across a small fire in the pre-dawn darkness.
“The flames just got bigger and bigger and I could feel the heat when I drove by,” Prentice said.
Tom Lukiwski, the Conservative Party MP for the area, said he was “very surprised, almost shocked” to learn of the derailment. He said he immediately reached out to the federal minister of transport to request a full investigation, and asked that the results be made public.
“Perhaps this is a coincidence, perhaps it’s something larger than that,” Lukiwski said in an interview. “To have a fairly major derailment like this occur at almost the same location as a previous derailment less than two months ago, that’s odd to say the very least, and that’s why I’d like the minister of transport to give me and, frankly, all Canadians — particularly those living around Humboldt and Guernsey — some assurances that the minister’s office will be doing a thorough investigation and try to get some answers and share those answers and share that information with the people affected.”
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it’s deploying a team of investigators to “gather information and assess the occurrence.”
According to CP Rail, there was no impact to waterways. The company said in a statement that its emergency response teams were at the scene Thursday and “working closely with local first responders to contain the fire.” CP also said it was working with local officials in assisting community members displaced as a result of the derailment.