Local rail boss ‘mystified’ by deadly Canada disaster
The local chairman of the railway company whose runaway tanker train exploded over the weekend in a Quebec town, killing at least 15, said Tuesday he was “mystified” by a fire that apparently broke out on one of the locomotives before the crash.
Firefighters called to put out the flames might have inadvertently caused the train’s brakes to release by shutting down the idling locomotive, Ed Burkhardt said, leading to the deadly fiery crash that’s left at least 50 missing. Canadian authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the deadly oil train derailment.
“I’m not alleging that these firemen did anything in bad faith or anything like that,” said Burkhardt, the chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway who lives in Chicago’s suburbs.
He made those comments while rushing to O’Hare Airport from his office in Rosemont to catch a flight to Montreal. He said he was on his way to the crash site, three days after the derailment. Police there insist on protecting him once he arrives, an associate told him, and he said he’s been getting hate mail.
One he described as “relatively calm” read, “Don’t you have the b---- to show up, up here?”
“I’ve taken all kinds of abuse,” Burkhardt said.
He said he learned about the crash around 3 a.m. Saturday. The eastbound train carrying 72 carloads of crude oil and five locomotive units derailed at the Rue Frontenac road crossing in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, at about 1:15 a.m. that morning, according to a statement on his company’s website.
It said the train was stopped by the engineer at 11:25 p.m at a station 6.8 miles west of Lac-Megantic for a crew change. That’s when the train began to move downhill toward the town without the engineer, the company said.
The train sped downhill nearly seven miles and jumped the tracks at 63 mph. All but one of its 73 cars were carrying oil. At least five exploded. The blasts destroyed about 30 buildings.
Burkhardt said he’s particularly concerned about recent reports of additional deaths.
“There will be more,” he said. “Because they’re going house-to-house.”
The same train had caught fire hours earlier in Nantes, and the engine was shut down — standard operating procedure dictated by the train’s owners, Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert said.
But Burkhardt said shutting down the locomotive, and an air compressor necessary to keep the brakes in place, eventually caused the brakes to release. He also said such a fire on the locomotive is a “very rare event.”
“I’m mystified by that,” Burkhardt said.