CN says speed, driver error not causes in derailment

Excessive speed and driver error were not factors in a fiery train derailment west of Wadena on Tuesday.

Director of public relations with CN Rail, Jim Feeny said after a day onsite, three Transportation Safety Board (TSB) investigators ruled out both as potential causes for the derailment.

The train, which started in Winnipeg and was bound for Saskatoon, was moving 100 cars, 40 of which were loaded.

The TSB said the train was traveling an appropriate speed of 65 kilometres an hour when something caused 26 cars to derail including six cars carrying dangerous goods including hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, and petroleum distillates. Two cars carrying petroleum distillates leaked causing the fire which sent huge clouds of smoke into the air and forced the temporary evacuation of the town of Clair.

Residents have since returned home.
 
Neither of the two crew members on board were hurt.

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Transportation Safety Board regional manager of operations for rail investigation, Rob Johnston, said the train’s emergency brakes were activated as expected after the train left the tracks.

“The operator of the train, or the locomotive engineer, did not place the train into emergency. It happened because the train came apart,” he said.

Although investigators continue to search for why the train went into emergency braking, Johnston said it “usually” happens after derailment because the stuck cars cause the air brake lines between them to break, signaling to the train to apply the emergency brakes.

So far investigators have reviewed data from the train event recorder, interviewed the crew and identified pieces of rail to be sent to the their engineering laboratory in Ottawa.
 
The train started in Winnipeg and was bound for Saskatoon. It was moving 100 cars, 40 of which were loaded.

After clearing some of the wreckage, the TSB gave CN permission to reopen the track around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Investigators will now review the condition of the all the cars and the track infrastructure, and will assess the damage done to each car.

“Investigators will be looking at the track, the infrastructure supporting it, the cars, wheels every mechanical and engineering factor and that’s why it takes so long,” Feeny said, adding crews could be looking at the wreckage for a few months before coming to an conclusions.
 
When asked if the two train cars that were breached in the crash were the older DOT 111 tanker cars the TSB recommended be phased out over the next four years, Feeny said he wasn’t comfortable answering,
 
“That is one of the factors being examined so I don`t think I`m in a position yet to be able to comment yet at this stage of the investigation,” Feeny said. “I’d defer to the investigation being further along.”

Johnston said he did not know if the broken oil containers were the older model.

After the Lac-Megantic derailment on in July, 2013, the TSB recommended rail companies phase out the old oil tanker cars to improve safety on the railways.
 
Following the recommendations, CN Rail announced they were spending $7 million to phase out and retrofit 183 DOT 111s over four years.
 
In the House of Commons on Wednesday, Liberal MP Ralph Goodale asked TSB minister Lisa Raitt whether the tankers were old. Raitt said that’s a question for CN Rail.

-With files from News Talk Radio’s Francois Biber and Lasia Kretzel

news@panow.com

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