2019 ‘bad year’ for derailments, spills on province’s railways
A former railway safety investigator says a pair of fiery derailments west of Saskatoon should lead to change in the industry, which is emerging from one of its worst years in the last decade.
“Last year was a bad year,” said Ian Naish, who previously led investigations for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) and now runs a private safety consulting business.
“That was a very late wake-up call, but I hope it was a wake-up call, and the railways are paying a little more attention to their track conditions and the operation of the unit oil trains,” he added.
Canadian railways suffered a total of 169 accidents involving dangerous goods in 2019, up sharply from the 125 reported in 2018 and well above the 10-year average of 127, according to new data from the TSB.
They also experienced more accidents in which dangerous goods were released than in any other year since 2010 — a total of eight, double the 10-year average, the TSB reported Tuesday.
The total number of main line derailments also jumped last year, to 93, though the number in Saskatchewan fell to 12 from 18. The 10-year average in the province is just shy of 11.
The TSB data does not break out accidents involving dangerous goods by province.
One of those dangerous goods accidents occurred on Dec. 9 near Guernsey, about 100 kilometres up Highway 16 from Saskatoon, when a Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. train hauling crude oil derailed and exploded.
A second, similar incident occurred just a few kilometres up the line two months later. Altogether, more than three million litres of crude oil were spilled. The
TSB suspects both incidents were caused by broken rails.
The second derailment led Transport Minister Marc Garneau to impose new, slower speed limits for trains hauling large quantities of dangerous goods and the TSB to recommend improved safety standards for rail infrastructure.
Naish said it is too soon to tell whether much lower derailment figures and dangerous good releases reported in the first four months of 2020 are attributable to those changes. They could also be a “blip” stemming from reduced economic activity, he noted.
Regardless, he continued, more could be done to prevent serious incidents like the two derailments near Guernsey, including better risk assessments, as some derailments “you could see coming.”
“You’re operating very heavy trains with very volatile product above the speed at which the tank cars can survive derailment. If you don’t look after the track, bad things are going to happen,” he added.
Bruce Campbell, who wrote a book about the 2013 Lac-mégantic, Que. disaster in which a runaway train exploded and killed 47 people, suggested even more could be done to improve safety, which he said can take a back seat to economics.
That includes a stronger safety culture, better practices to manage crew fatigue and improvements to the mandatory safety management systems (SMS) introduced in 2002, as well as less “deference” in regulation, Campbell said.
The TSB flagged SMS on its most recent safety watch list, which identifies “key safety issues that need to be addressed,” since 2010. The most recent edition notes SMS is “not always effective at identifying hazards and mitigating risks.”
Transport Canada provided a lengthy statement detailing its commitment to “working with our partners” to make railways safer, its “robust oversight program” that results in more than 33,000 inspections and audits annually.
Three ministerial orders issued in April lower speeds for trains carrying dangerous goods in metropolitan areas as well as “direct” rail companies to update rules governing track safety and the movement of dangerous goods, Transport Canada spokesperson Sau Sau Liu said in the statement.
Liu said the department would review the TSB’S latest report and incorporate it into inspection plans.
Not everyone is convinced. Campbell said that while fiery derailments like the one that devastated Lac-megantic and the two at Guernsey are “low probability, high consequence” events, the probability remains “too high.”
“You want to keep it as low as possible. You’re maybe never going to get it to zero, but it’s too high,” he said.
I hope it was a wake-up call, and the railways are paying a little more attention to their track conditions and the operation of the unit oil trains.