Exclusive : The head of the Transportation Safety Board says more track inspections needed to prevent derailments.
Safety board head calls for lower speed limits for oil trains, more track inspections, despite pushback from railways
The head of Canada’s Transportation Safety Board is calling on government and industry to slow down crude-oil trains and conduct more frequent and thorough track inspections to lessen the risk of fiery derailments until proposed new tank-car standards come into effect.
Fears about the risks of transporting crude by rail, which burst into the public consciousness following the Lac-Mégantic, Que. disaster in 2013, were stoked again this winter after four separate oil trains derailed and caught fire in less than a month.
All four, including two Canadian National Railway Co. trains that derailed in Northern Ontario, were using new CPC1232 tank cars that are supposed to be tougher and safer than the ones that ruptured in Lac-Mégantic. The crude oil in those cars exploded after an unattended train rolled downhill into the Quebec town and derailed, killing 47.
“We are concerned that, given the recent performance of the CPC-1232 cars in Northern Ontario and elsewhere, they are not strong enough for the transportation of flammable liquids and therefore we are anxious for the government to move forward with introducing new standards sooner rather than later,” TSB chairwoman Kathy Fox said in an interview with the Financial Post.
“In the meantime, they need to take additional steps to mitigate the risk while crude oil and other flammable liquids continue to be transported in the CPC-1232 cars.”
Specifically, Ms. Fox said she would like the railways to boost “the frequency and the depth” of their track inspections, as the TSB believes track failures played a role in both CN derailments near Gogama, Ont.
Trains carrying crude oil tend to be heavier than, say, trains carrying grain, and this can exacerbate the risk of track failures if there are already structural weaknesses.
Ms. Fox added that slower trains could also help prevent derailments, or at least make them less prone to punctures and fires if they do occur.
Currently, the speed limit for trains carrying dangerous goods is 80 kilometres an hour, and slower in urban areas.
Although both CN and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. have long stressed their focus on safety, the latter proposal is unlikely to be welcomed by industry.
In a recent speech to the Canadian Club of Toronto, outspoken CP chief executive Hunter Harrison said slower crude trains will inevitably slow down the movement of other commodities, like grain.
“When we slow trains down, we block crossings,” he said. “We slow crude down, we slow the grain pipeline down. All this is intermixed and there aren’t easy solutions.”
Meanwhile, Transport Canada has proposed an even more stringent standard for the tank cars used to ship crude that will include thicker steel, insulation to protect the contents from fire and a shield to guard against punctures, among other things. If the measures are approved, older tank cars, including the CPC-1232, will be phased out by 2025.
However, Ms. Fox said there’s only so much Transport Canada can do until the U.S. Department of Transportation develops its own standards.
“When you’re going forward with a new standard, and a new standard that hopefully will stand the test of time, it’s clear it needs to be harmonized with the U.S. ... because these cars are routinely going back and forth across the border,” she said.
“We don’t know what the Americans are going to propose but we’re hoping that between the two governments they’ll come out with a final rule as soon as possible.”
As the TSB celebrates its 25th anniversary — the independent agency was created by an act of Parliament on March 29, 1990, to investigate marine, pipeline, rail and aviation accidents — Ms. Fox said one of her goals is to catch the next Lac-Mégantic before it happens.
“The increased transportation of flammable liquids caught a number of people by surprise,” said Ms. Fox, who was appointed chairwoman in August 2014 following a lengthy career in air-traffic control.
National Energy Board data shows that crude-by-rail exports soared to 15.95 million barrels in the fourth quarter of 2014 from 1.45 million barrels in the first quarter of 2012.
She is determined not to be caught off guard again, and the TSB has a profusion of data from accident investigations that it can use to look for “particular areas of vulnerability” in Canada’s transportation networks.
In the past 25 years, the TSB has used its findings to make more than 550 safety recommendations to Transport Canada and industry. As of September, 75% of those had been fully adopted and another 20% had seen some sort of response.
“If people can learn from that [data] and adapt, then they have a better chance of preventing the next accident,” Ms. Fox said.
“Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I’m going to have an accident today.’ … We have to continue to look for the gaps and the risks in the system, and they’re changing all the time.”