Canada police say 5 dead, about 40 missing after oil train blast

by Think About It 20 Replies latest social current

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  Simon

  Calgary narrowly escaped a similar fate, when a bridge collapsed under six oil tankers, five of which were full of combustibles. Kudos to the Calgary crew, who cautiously anchored the tanks, drained them, and moved them.

  Yes, the rail people said it was safe and good to go and then the bridge buckled. Apparently "safe" means "it's too dangerous to inspect, let's try sending a train across it".

  Being safe isn't how they make their money. The cleanup and disaster is handled by local / federal tax payers.

  It's why you need STRONG legislation and governance of oil-companies too, something with teeth - they need to know they will lose big time if an incident happens so they do the cost-benefit analysis correctly.
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  jgnat

  It looks like there has been a push for deregulation since the 1980's for the sake of profitability.

  http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Manitoba_Pubs/lastspike.pdf (1996)

  http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/183 Pro-deregulation (2000)

  http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/railsafety/exsm_canada-us_harmonization%28flicker%29_eng.pdf (2007)
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  mamochan13

  I constantly hear the pipeline debate at the Legislature. I agree, Think about It, that pipelines are safer than trains in general. At the very least, the possibility of human error is less. In reading how this horrible accident occurred, I'm surprised at the process of leaving the train braked and unattended - especially since the fire department had been called to attend a fire in the locomotive only a few hours previous. Something seems odd about the whole story.

  Yes, there is a push for profit that sometimes transcends safety, but by the same token, these big companies do not gain anything by a disaster like this. Safety is a pretty big thing in the oil patch and transport industries. I've got family and friends working in both, and I know they take it seriously. Where things break down, I think, is in trying to find efficiencies. A friend of mine who works here at CN told me many horror stories of management practices that created unsafe working conditions simply because they were trying to operate more "efficiently" translate: cheaply.

  But getting back to the pipeline, I'd be far more comfortable with a pipeline transporting oil through my community than having it criss-crossed by rail and trains carrying all kinds of hazardous goods. I don't know the stats, but I'd wager that there are a lot of train accidents compared to pipeline.
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  jgnat

  Here's the well-hidden Canadian Environmental Offenders Registry.

  http://www.ec.gc.ca/alef-ewe/default.asp?lang=En&n=1F014378-1

  The search engine sucks. I searched "rail" and I came up with two incidents. I found nothing under "pipe" or "pipeline".

  I remember an interview of an Inuit way back in the seventies who asked why railroads weren't being seriously considered over a pipeline? After all, once the oil is gone the rail is still there and will support the community by transporting other things. Typically native groups prefer slow growth over manic speed.
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  Simon

  Having done some work todo with pipeline's and safety inspections in oil and gas, my experience is that such things aren't terribly high up on the importance-agenda. They do what they are forced to, little more and things are a little haphazard and the inspection oversight poor IMO.
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  jgnat

  The difference between a company that complies only to the letter of the law and one that lives by safety, is like comparing XL foods and Maple Leaf. I KNOW that any delay in handing over records means they haven't invested in decent record-keeping. At XL foods, the fubar continued until the entire management was replaced. With Maple Leaf, the president made it a personal goal to rebuild integrity. The difference was night and day.
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  Scully

  Current news reports places the death toll at 13 with another 37 people unaccounted for.
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  Think About It

  My goodness this is getting really really bad. I'm hearing around 50 people still missing.
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  ?evrything

  They got vaporized. Horrible.
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  Think About It

  My goodness......the dead toll is up to 24 now, with 26 still missing.