MARCH 10, 2015
GOGAMA, ONTARIO, CANADA
New standards for tanker cars are coming, but it's not yet
clear how quickly the rail fleet will be updated. Fires from Saturday's
derailment near Gogama, Ont., were still burning on Monday. (Transportation
Safety Board)
Jean-Pierre Gagnon, a leading expert on the tanker
cars involved in the two CN train derailments and fires near Gogama, Ont.,
says there is "no miracle solution" to preventing catastrophic
accidents.
Gagnon, who was Transport Canada's superintendent in charge
of rail tank car regulations and standards before being laid off prior to the
Lac-Mégantic rail disaster, says even the most heavily reinforced tank car can
be breached.
"Accidents can be extremely violent events," says
Gagnon, who worked for 30 years with tanker cars and the movement of dangerous
goods. "It’s not just a matter of speed, but how the cars pile up, and if
there’s a rail pointing out like spear, and the car is at the right angle and
goes into it, it’s going to be breached.
"As spectacular as these accidents are, the cars might
have done their job."
In the February derailment near Gogama, 29 of 100 cars went
off the tracks. The Transportation Safety board was called in to investigate.
(Transportation Safety Board)
The DOT-111 tanker cars involved in the
Lac-Mégantic fire are being phased out, but the industry standard is
an upgrade that Gagnon worked on — the CPC-1232 tanker — the type used in
both Gogama accidents on Feb. 14 and March 7. More than 110,000 litres of
crude oil can be carried per car, and more than four million litres has escaped
during the two accidents, either burning or leaking into the environment.
The changes that led to the CPC-1232 tanker were
incremental, said Gagnon, and influenced by past recommendations by
Canada's Transportation Safety Board and its American equivalent. New
standards are in the process of being completed, he added, but that is the
way Transport Canada has historically worked.
"Accidents drive change," said Gagnon, who had
feared a Lac-Mégantic-like disaster and was not totally surprised
when it happened. "You can't make changes to 100,000 tank cars based on
potential problems."
New tanker car standards coming within months
New standards for tanker cars carrying crude oil are due by
May 12 in the U.S., which usually works in conjunction with Canada
on standards, said American tanker car expert Jim Rader. But even
with new standards coming in, he said, the problem will be turning over
the current fleet of tanker cars.
"Most manufacturers today are already building a 9/16-inch-thick
car with jackets and thermal protection," said Rader, who has worked with
tanker cars for more than 40 years and is now a senior vice-president with
Watco Apply Change Services. "We're pretty confident we know what
the final rules are going to be.
"What we don’t know is how do you handle the existing
fleet?"
Not all the existing cars are easily
retrofitted — adding extra safety measures might make them too long,
high or wide. And if the Canadian and U.S. authorities mandate that all cars
must meet the new standard in three years, "it cripples the
economy," said Rader.
If the governments allow a 10-year timetable to replace the
fleet, that is "likely too long. Somewhere in between is ideal,
and people in the industry hope it will be a phased-in retrofit period,
retrofitting the high-risk cars first, and then the ones less of a concern.
"We don’t know how it will unfold. We need a
crystal ball."
Other safety measures
Gagnon said the knee-jerk reaction is that the tank
cars should be made safer by making the steel walls thicker, as thick as the
ones that carry propane.
"You need to understand how they work in a fire, which
is almost another science in itself," said Gagnon. "On the
other hand, maybe we need to focus more on other parts of the equation —
preventing accidents or derailments, or make sure their violence is
reduced."
He suggests reducing the speed of trains, better
braking systems, and more emphasis on the condition of the track and
maintenance of the cars.
