Train left with no handbrakes on B.C. mountain slope, agency alleges
CALGARY — Transport Canada’s Rail Safety Division says a Canadian Pacific conductor was ordered to leave unattended a 57-car train containing tanker cars carrying dangerous goods without securing its emergency hand brakes on a mountain slope above Revelstoke last February.
The country’s travel safety governing body alleges in a 34-page information to obtain a search warrant, filed by safety inspector Robert W. Blair at Calgary provincial court last month, that conductor Stefaney Pacey had sent an email to a CPR union representative Jamie Lind on Feb. 16 concerning the order to not apply hand brakes, used to clap down wheels, to Train 401 on Feb. 14 and 15.
Her email was forwarded to Transportation Canada Rail Safety Inspector Todd Horie, then Horie and another Inspector Geoff Campbell launched an investigation into the alleged incident. The probe led to investigators seizing all radio voice recordings, telephone recordings, electronic and written records for rail traffic control, train information sheets, and management and employee notes from CPR’s head office last month.
In an interview with Pacey on April 29, according to the court document, the conductor said she was directed by her manager to set off all railway cars at Greely storage track of CPR’s Mountain Subdivision as they were approaching Revelstoke near the end of her shift late on Feb. 14. At midnight, CP workers were scheduled to walk off the job on a strike.
Pacey said she knew that all unattended equipment in high risk locations would require handbrakes to be applied to the cars, in accordance with an Oct. 29, 2014, directive from Transport Minister Lisa Raitt as a result of the deadly Lac Mégantic, Que., derailment the previous year. Pacey noted that via a radio communication to the rail traffic controller in Calgary there was insufficient time to complete the assigned movement as directed, and that she was directed not to apply the brakes to the standing cut of cars. She also informed that the direction came from Mark Jackson, then employed as superintendent for CPR’s B.C. Interior Division.
The conductor also advised investigators that she left the standing cut without handbrakes, as directed, and that she knew the railway tank cars — believed to be more than a dozen — were carrying dangerous goods. The cars relied on secondary brakes to keep from rolling and did not move until picked up later. As of the filing of the information to obtain the search warrant, no interview had been conducted with Train 401 engineer Curtis Ayotte.
Transportation Canada has not laid any charges yet, but alleges there is reasonable grounds to believe that two offences have been committed: that CPR and Jackson contravened a section of the Railway Safety Act by leaving the equipment unattended without using hand brakes.
CP spokesman Marty Cej said by phone Monday that he could comment very little as the incident still is under investigation. He also could not confirm media reports by Jackson that he had been cleared of any wrongdoing.
If a corporation is convicted of the charge by indictment, it faces a fine not exceeding $1 million. An individual faces a fine not exceeding $50,000 and one year in jail — or both. On the lesser summary conviction, a corporation is subject to a fine not exceeding $500,000, and an individual faces a fine of no more than $25,000 or six months in jail — or both.