Rail Boss Blames FF's In Montreal Oil Tanker Disaster

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An interesting one to hold the FD accountable like this. Are firefighters expected to have knowledge of locomotive operations? And I thought, well, at least in the US, the train's conductor or engineer can provide info on how to fight the fire, and often it's put out by them and no big deal.

Edward Burkhardt, president and CEO of the railway's parent company, Rail World Inc., suggested that shutting off the locomotive to put out the fire might have disabled the brakes.

"An hour or so after the locomotive was shut down, the train rolled away," he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Lambert defended the fire department, saying that the blaze was extinguished within about 45 minutes and that's when firefighters' involvement ended.

"The people from MMA told us, 'That's great — the train is secure, there's no more fire, there's nothing anymore, there's no more danger,'" Lambert said. "We were given our leave, and we left."

Read more: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Rail+Boss+Blames+FF%27s+In+Montreal+Oil+Tanker+Disaster&ei=utf-8&fr=chr-yie9

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Local news up this way, is now reporting that Burkhardt is now placing the blame squarely on the engineer who left the train and failed to properly set the hand brakes. I'm not sure how the Niantic VFD handles things, but I know that our FD would have no expertise in securing a locomotive and trains post-fire and would expect to hand the incident over to a rail road representative like any other incident. Leaving a scene without properly handing over the property to an RP allows for you to be on the hook, if even only in perception and not legally. In this case the finger was certainly pointing at the FD for a few days, in my opinion erroneously.

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/07/10/news/state/montreal-maine-and-atlantic-railways-chairman-says-brakes-on-train-in-lac-magantic-quebec-may-not-have-been-set-properly/

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Personally I find it comforting to know that Canadians are as willing to dodge responsibility as are Americans. There, like here, the first thing to do after a screw up is to find someone else to blame for it.

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Personally I find it comforting to know that Canadians are as willing to dodge responsibility as are Americans. There, like here, the first thing to do after a screw up is to find someone else to blame for it.

Sadly it appears that most of the MMA Rail Road principals are not Canadians at all. Burkhardt is a principal of many railroads worldwide according to his company bio.He's certainly not getting a pass from the people of Lac Megantic.

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An interesting one to hold the FD accountable like this. Are firefighters expected to have knowledge of locomotive operations? And I thought, well, at least in the US, the train's conductor or engineer can provide info on how to fight the fire, and often it's put out by them and no big deal.

I don't know what goes on in Canada but I can give a little insight what goes on around here (specifically with Metro North).

Way back when I took train emergency class taught by retired Metro North Assistant Chief Donald (Spanky) McLennan (sp?), as emergency responders we were in no way instructed what to do in order to properly secure a train Initially it's the train conductor in charge until an operations manager arrives.

As a conductor I was taught how to secure the equipment. Whether it's a parking brake on an M7 or Genesis locomotive or a hand brake on an M3, BL20, coach, freight car, etc. The steeper the grade the more hand brakes that have to be applied. We are not trained to fight fires other than small fires with the BC fire extinguishers on the trains (don't ask, I never got the answer).

If there's any considerable fire were told to evacuate the car or cars affected and if necessary the train. If it came to evacuating the train then we have to take tracks out of service, third rail de-energized, etc.

In the land of freight trains the conductor will have a manifest of the cargo in each rail car. They conductor and engineer are not taught how to fight a fire, that's the fire departments job. Cars containing hazardous material will have placards. The number of cars in the consist will dictate how many hand brakes need to be applied to secure it.

Edward Burkhardt, president and CEO of the railway's parent company, Rail World Inc., suggested that shutting off the locomotive to put out the fire might have disabled the brakes.

That sounds like he's passing the buck. If the locomotive was shut down then there may not be an adequate supply of air to keep the service brake applied in the event of an air leak. if the hand brake is not applied then it could roll. That would fall on the negligence of the company.

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I guess Rail Worlds approach to this potential bankruptin incident is to pull a finger pointing response and stamp their feet and scream it was not me it was him. I would like to know how the can claim an hour after a job it is FDs responsibility. Where was their company response team? Don't they head out to a fire on a HazMat train. Where was their responsibility.

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An interesting one to hold the FD accountable like this. Are firefighters expected to have knowledge of locomotive operations? And I thought, well, at least in the US, the train's conductor or engineer can provide info on how to fight the fire, and often it's put out by them and no big deal.

Read more: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Rail+Boss+Blames+FF%27s+In+Montreal+Oil+Tanker+Disaster&ei=utf-8&fr=chr-yie9

This was in Lac-Megantic, a little less than 3 hours from Montreal.

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Definitely looking like the engineer is now bearing the brunt of this. Right or wrong I have no idea, but some of what is being said makes sense regarding hand brakes as an industry standard.

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/07/11/news/state/quebec-train-set-too-few-brakes-with-deadly-result/