Ottawa probes scarce oversight before fatal derailment

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This article was published 29/05/2020 (1708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The federal government is still looking into why Transport Canada failed to monitor the Churchill railway ahead of a derailment that killed a conductor in northern Manitoba.

A month ago, the Transportation Safety Board released its investigation into the September 2018 derailment south of Thompson on the Hudson Bay Railway.

The report found former owner Omnitrax had done minimal track maintenance after the spring 2017 washout, and reduced its beaver-control program, leaving the track vulnerable to a washout.

Yet the TSB also found Transport Canada had not reviewed the emergency-response plan in years, including a month before the derailment, when Ottawa transferred the railway into local hands.

The investigation pointed to this as a factor for the slow response to the derailment. The conductor, Kevin Anderson, 38, died from internal bleeding on the scene, 8.5 hours after the train left the track.

“We are currently assessing the TSB’s report to know if there are specific measures that need to be taken by Transport Canada,” Transport Minister Marc Garneau told the Free Press on Friday, in his first press conference since March 21.

He did not say whether anyone at Transport Canada had faced consequences.

“Obviously, that was a tragic accident with loss of life,” Garneau said.

Transport Canada said that the railway updated its emergency-response plan by February 2019 to better deal with derailments. The department said it also inspected the line and train crews that year.

NDP MP Niki Ashton has called for a deeper investigation of how Ottawa regulates rail safety.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca