Residents Concerned About Derailment Near Terrace
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 @ 3:44 AM
CN Derailment site, near Cedarvale, photo taken from the opposite bank of the Skeena River.- submitted photo
Terrace, B.C. -Residents of Kitwanga say that while CN has been dealing with the derailment on their line near Cedarvale, east of Terrace, they believe railroad ties have fallen into the Skeena River.
The ties would contain creosote which area residents fear will cause damage to the Skeena.
A CN spokesperson says five cars derailed last Friday at 1.45am. All of those cars according to CN spokesperson, Emily Hamer, did not contain any dangerous goods. The derailment temporarily suspended operations on the line to Prince Rupert. They were brought back into operation on Saturday.
There were no injuries.
Comments
Looks to me like any loose ties would have fallen onto the gravel bar…Quite impressive how fast their crews can do a repair.
Since the advent of trains, hundreds of thousands of miles of track have been built paralleling rivers and lakes, typically the most efficient way to build a railway, lining the banks and foreshores with millions of ties soaked in creoste that must eventually leach into the waterways. I find it hard to get excited about a few hundred that actually make their way into the river.
At least it wasn’t a load of crude….a few ties would be the least of their worries.
I would hope the first thought going through anyones mind would be the safety of the crew and if anyone was hurt..
From an environemnetal perpective i would be more worried about rail & foresty wood glu-lam and pile bridges leaching creosote into watersheds..
Actually, for how much traffic they move I’m surprised they don’t have more incidents. I still think rail is safer than trucking for the most part, especially when the equivalent of 1 loaded rail car would be an extra 2 or 3 trucks on our roads.
Thousands of water crossings on the continent use creosote treated ties and timbers that drip constantly. A few ties in the river is but an amoeba on an elephants behind.
So, do we really prefer rail and roads as the best option to transport oil and other chemicals to our western ports? Road and rail always seem to be located right beside our waterways. How is it that a pipeline that crosses the country would be so much more of an environmental concern?
BYOB raises a valid argument .. suffice to say that the environmentalists would fight the railroads if they didn’t exist today and had to go through an approval process .. what has been missing in the discussion is an awareness of the increased rail traffic hauling Alberta oil products to Vancouver now that the Kinder Morgan pipeline has reached capacity .. the oil will reach the BC coast to be shipped overseas one way or another .. the real question is what is the safest method and ensuring that the appropriate checks and balances are in place .. hauling oil by rail along routes established over a 100 years ago doesn’t seem like the best option anymore
Comments for this article are closed.