On March 3, seventeen cars on a Canadian National freight train left the tracks north of Blue River. The accident spilled grain along the banks of the North Thompson River. Last April, a CN train crew reported an “undesired emergency brake application” not far from Tete Jaune Cache. As they inspected the train, they found 28 cars near the front of the train had derailed. At the end of the train, another five cars had derailed. One car, loaded with grain, ended up in the Fraser River. In August 2005, 10 cars derailed just east of Hinton. One car, loaded with coke was on its side and leaking product. Another car that was carrying a sodium hydroxide solution remained upright. 

Three nearby derailments within twelve months, and while none happened to cause the same amount of significant environmental damage as the oil spill caused by yet another CN derailment at Wabamun Lake last summer, that doesn’t mean that these incidents have gone unnoticed.

Yellowhead Member of Parliament Rob Merrifield, for one, is well aware. After the Hinton incident last year, Merrifield sent a letter to then Transport Minister Jean Lapierre, requesting that the ministry conduct a formal safety review of the Edmonton-Jasper rail corridor. Between the January election and the installment of a new Conservative cabinet, Merrifield says that no progress has been made towards any sort of wide-ranging investigation.

“Not an awful lot has come of it,” he admitted. Merrifield is eagerly awaiting the final report on the Lake Wabamun spill, which is expected to be completed before the summer.

“I’m looking to find out how it happened and what can be done to prevent it,” he said. “There’s got to be a reason and the question becomes how do we fix it — regulations, restrictions, legislation?”

The CN track runs through environmentally sensitive terrain from Hinton throughout the Rockies and the B.C. Interior, and for Merrfield, this only makes his concerns about the situation more acute.

“I’m not about to say ho hum and forget about this,” he said. “We need to know what is happening and what we can do about it. There is a solution, but we need to fully understand the problem before we make any firm suggestions.”

CN Rail has already taken steps to avoid accidents and derailments from becoming an increasing concern, according to company spokesperson Jim Feeny.

“In late 2005 we developed and implemented a safety action plan that is designed to address all accidents whether major or minor,” he said. 

2005 was not a good year for accidents involving CN trains. In addition to the Lake Wabamun disaster, a train that derailed near Squamish B.C. dumped more than 40,000 litres of toxic chemical into the Cheakamus River, killing fish and plant life. Beyond these two significant incidents, Feeny acknowledges that there was a “spike” in smaller accidents. 

“In Western Canada we had a surge in the number of smaller, more minor incidents with the vast majority having little or no environmental impact,” he said. “It was more than we had seen in previous years.”

A careful review of this trend revealed no simple solutions.

“That was the challenge — there was no one common denominator,” Feeny said. “There was a mixture of engineering issues, problems with track, problems with cars, employee error.”

This discovery led to the safety action plan, which Feeny describes as substantial and comprehensive.

“The plan addresses just about every aspect of the railroad,” he said. “We have increased inspections, we are taking very serious looks at how we work, making sure that rules are known and followed.”

Feeny claims that there are measurable differences already.

“If you look at our main-track accidents major and minor, for this year, there is a signifcant improvement across the country. As of last Wednesday we had a total of seven main track accidents. In the same period in 2005 that number was 13.”

Although Transport Canada and provincial authorities had indicated their concern in the latter half of 2005, the decision to take action was made internally, Feeny said.

“Accidents are not good business. They can be catastrophic, they cost a lot of money to fix and they disrupt the ability to service your customers,” he said. “We looked at it and said this is not acceptable and we decided that it was time to do something about it.”

While CN recognizes that their trains are travelling through sensitive areas, there is no difference in approach once the tracks hit the national park boundaries, he said. 

“The objective is to prevent accidents to the greatest degree possible along the entire rail system. We work closely with the municipal authorities and with Parks Canada as well.”