MARCH 22, 2015
Canadian National Railway's safety record deteriorated sharply in 2014, reversing years of improvements, as accidents in Canada blamed on poor track conditions hit their highest level in more than five years, a Reuters analysis has found.
Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said on Tuesday
that track failure may have played a role in CN's three recent Ontario
accidents, which have fueled calls for tougher regulation. The agency said oil
unit trains, made up entirely of tank cars, could make tracks more susceptible
to failure.
Data obtained under access to information laws and analyzed
by Reuters shows a broader trend, which has not been previously reported, and
could pile more pressure on CN Rail to slow down trains or reduce their length.
A crackdown on oil trains could raise the cost of shipping Canadian crude by
rail.
Trains operated by CN in Canada derailed along main lines 57
times in 2014, up 73 percent from 33 in 2013 and well above a 2009-2013 average
of 39 accidents per year. On CN's full 21,000 mile (33,800 km) network, which
also includes the Midwestern and southern United States, freight carloads rose
8 percent last year.
At least 27 of the domestic derailments were caused by track
problems, up from a previous annual average of 14. Data for smaller rival
Canadian Pacific Railway showed no similar pattern.
"CN is keenly aware of its recent safety trends,
starting with a sudden increase of its accident rate in 2014," Canada's
biggest railway said in a response to Reuters' analysis.
The railway pointed out that its performance improved
between 2007 and 2013, and so far, 2015 has been better than 2014. It said it
was reviewing recent trends and has started testing tracks more frequently,
boosted spending on infrastructure and installed new technology to detect
problems with its tracks and equipment.
For 2015 it is planning to increase capital spending by
C$300 million, to C$2.6 billion ($2.1 billion).
The rapid rise of crude by rail traffic has made more
derailments potentially deadly, exposing railways to more scrutiny,
particularly since 2013, when a runaway oil train leveled the center of the
Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people.
Doug Finnson, president of a Teamsters union representing CN
Rail's train crews, said he was particularly concerned with the recent Ontario
derailments.
"We're on the record saying the trains are too long,
the cars are too heavy, and the trains go too fast."
Yet it is not clear what was behind CN's poor safety
performance last year.
BROKEN RAIL
New Brunswick farmer Paul-Emile Soucy, who experienced CN's
troubles first-hand, faults inadequate maintenance. This is unfortunately typical of every industry: lack of maintenance and human errors are the leading causes of accidents.
On Jan. 26, 2014, a CN train derailed crossing his
230-year-old family farm. He said CN workers had marked railroad ties that
needed to be replaced months before the accident, but they were replaced only
after the derailment.
"They knew that the ties were bad and rotten and had to
be replaced, but they didn't do anything about it," said Soucy. Data
obtained by Reuters indicates that a broken rail caused the derailment.
But CN rejected Soucy's criticism, saying it spent C$41
million on basic maintenance in the area between 2012 and 2014.
The railway blamed bad weather and increased freight volume
for last year's spike in derailments. Rough weather, however, did not prevent
rival Canadian Pacific from improving its safety performance, and the rise in
volume was far less pronounced than the jump in derailments.
Both railways shipped similar volumes of crude last year -
CN moved 128,000 carloads, or some 2 percent of its freight volume, and CP
moved 110,000 carloads, 4 percent of its total.
The safety watchdog TSB has suggested that oil trains may
have contributed to track problems that caused the Ontario accidents, but
declined to comment on whether those trains could also be behind the overall
rise in derailments, or comment on Reuters' analysis in general.
Transport Canada, the industry's main regulator, also did
not comment specifically on Reuters' findings, but spokesman Zach Segal noted
that Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has asked a parliamentary committee to
invite CN Rail to discuss its operations.
CN suggested last year could have been an outlier.
"It's important to view CN's safety performance over a
span of time to assess meaningful trend lines, not just on the basis of a
single or two-year perspective," the railway said.
Its own statistics, shared with Reuters, show that its
Canadian accident rate declined 26 percent from 2007 to 2013, to 1.71 accidents
per million train miles. In 2014, the rate jumped to 2.67, its highest in at
least a decade, but it is down to 2.15 so far this year. A less commonly used
measure, accidents per billion gross ton miles, has improved markedly over the
last decade, but jumped 58 percent in 2014.
Reuters' analysis showed last year's spike in accidents was
driven mainly by track problems.
Ian Naish, a former director of rail and pipeline
investigations at the TSB, said weather and traffic could have played a role,
but one should also consider the impact of unit trains, which carry single
commodities, on tracks.
"The intensity of loading is heavier than a
mixed-freight train, generally," said Naish. "All the cars are the
same design, and the loads are all the same, so it's the same impact, the same
way, all the time."
Unit trains have long been used to carry coal, grain and
other commodities, but oil trains are a product of the rise of crude by rail
and the shale boom of the past few years.
CN declined to comment on its recent accidents in Ontario,
citing ongoing investigations. It said, however, that it had seen no indication
that unit trains cause accidents, noting that such trains carrying other
commodities, many with heavier loads, have run safely for decades. But the
railway said it was reviewing the issue with outside experts.
Source: http://www.reuters.com
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http://metroforensics.blogspot.com/2015/03/united-states-still-has-one-of-highest.html
UNITED STATES STILL HAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST ROAD ACCIDENT
DEATH AND INJURY RATES IN THE WORLD: 34,000 DIE AND 2.5 MILLION INJURED EACH
YEAR.
Despite the improvements in road safety, the United States
has one of the highest death rates at about 1 person dead per 10,000 people.
Unfortunately, only undeveloped countries have higher death rate.
Some states, such as Texas and West Virginia (sorry, WV,
despite your tremendous progress in traffic safety, you are still at the top of
the worst-death-rate list) have death rates of nearly 1.5 percent, i.e., fifty
percent more people die compared to the national death rate.
Approximately 34,000 people are getting killed each
year. In the 1950s and 1960s, about 55,000 people used to die on the
roads – so, there has been improvement in the number of dead.
However, the number of injured is rising. Roughly 2.5
million are injured (yes, you read it correctly – 2.5 million injured) per
year. That is, 1 percent (1%) of the population that is eligible to drive
is injured every year.
It is worse than a war zone out there. So, please be
safe and be on the lookout for weaving-through-the-traffic drivers, crazy drivers,
reckless drivers, sick drivers, medical-condition drivers, sleepy drivers,
negligent drivers, stupid drivers, careless drivers, drunk drivers, speeding
drivers, drugged drivers, texting drivers, talking-on-the-phone drivers,
looking-at-the-GPS drivers, hurry-hurry drivers, tailgating drivers, upset
drivers, eating-while-driving drivers, putting-the-lipstick-on-while-driving
drivers, and so on.
It is about time we invest in our road and rail and gas infrastructure
and road safety. These death/injury numbers
above indicate the tremendous loss of life and the loss of productive
individuals. The cost to our society is extraordinary. Having satisfied our thirst for bloody wars
that ended in disasters, we must spend few trillions of dollars in improving
the safety of our roads and rails and gas infrastructure.
The price of oil and gas is very low right
time and provides great opportunity to tax these commodities and activities to
pay for the improvements. United States
needs to stop being a third world country when comes to road safety.