Lac Megantic disaster blamed on weak safety measures

The Transportation Safety Board has released its report on last summer’s deadly Lac Megantic train derailment.

Although the TSB says many factors led to the disaster, it says lax safety measures at the company that owned the runaway train are largely responsible.

TSB chair Wendy Tadros says there were 18 factors that played a role in the accident — including the fact that about one-third of the de-railed tanker cars had big breaches that released large quantities of petroleum crude oil very quickly.

“It was a company with a weak safe culture, and a company where people did what was needed to get the job done, rather than always following the rules. a company where unsafe conditions and unsafe practices were allowed to continue.”

The agency is also pointing the finger at Transport Canada, saying the department didn’t audit MMA often and thoroughly enough to ensure it was effectively managing the risks in its operations.

On July 6th 2013 a Montreal, Maine and Atlantic railway train carrying a highly volatile crude oil barreled into the town of Lac Megantic, Quebec. The explosion killed 47 people, injured thousands more and left the downtown destroyed.

Examples cited were the choice to lower the track speeds rather than invest more in infrastructure, cutting corners on engine maintenance and training and then relying on employees to follow the rules.

It found the company did not effectively manage risk either in day-to-day operations or when operations changed, nor when reducing crew numbers from two to one and also when transporting increasing car loads of crude oil.

Experts like Manish Verma from Degroote School of Business says the final finding is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry today.

“Crude oil transportation on railroads has increased I would say roughly 300% from 2008 until 2013. Between the two major Canadian railroad operators which is CN and CP, they moved close to 130,000 crude oil tankers in the last year. I don’t think regulators will be able to keep up.”

Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt said they still have to review the report but are making changes.

“We are going to do more work regarding oversight and safety management system and the department has a plan they are implementing.”

The TSB ended the day by making two recommendations. They want the government to ensure rail companies are following through on safety procedures. They also want physical defences put in place to stop runaway trains.