All I can say in this mans opinion is that it is long past the time that BC incorporate all railroad tracks in the province under a crown corporation that oversees the safety of the tracks and facilitates an open port status for the entire province of British Columbia for all transportation consorts that wish to compete to advance the transportation services to this province.

For this to happen we desperately need politicians that stand for British Columbia first, and loyal campaign contributors second.

I also think it should be the role of the Chamber of Commerce to advance this kind of infrastructure arrangement on behalf of the business community that would be the primary benefactor of an enhanced transportation sector.

In addition to that it is the duty of the community leaders to take the lead on the safety aspect in promoting this type of arrangement.

Unfortunately both have taken the exact oposite position in the privatization of BC Rail as an example of the position our community leaders and Chamber of Commerce have taken in regards to this issue.

So so does anyone know what caused the accident at Hixon?? Could it have been a fault of the railbed, and don't we, the people of BC own the railbed?? Does this mean we could be liable for damages?? Seems to me we might be flapping our gums about CN being such an irresponsible Corporate Citizen, when the problem could possibly be the railbed maintenance crew or management!! Lets hope we ourselves are not the culprits in this one.

Tis Tis CN, Maybe CN should be putting some of their money in the proper places, instead of cutting back. Oops!did I say or leak something I shouldn't have. Oh well tough. Yes the truth does hurt, isn't that right CN! Sooner or later things are bound to go wrong. My neighbour is an CN employee, before he was with BC Rail. A few weeks back we were talking about the maintence on the rail cars. He had made a commit about how shottie they carry out their maintance. It's not a problem with the maintence workers its a big problem with the employer, "CN". He tells that when working for BC Rail more time was given into inspecting , repairing and replacing items on the cars. The difference with CN is that a slight inspection, if any is given to the cars. Maintence is rushed. "The most obvious things are taken care of and the minor things are repaired when that car comes back to the yard". I tell him that thats like letting an airplane take off knowing that a wheel bearing on one of the landing gear wheels is toast. He goes on to say that they (CN) doesn't spend a fraction of money to what BCR would spend on their maintence. And to top that off they've even had some cutbacks in that department. "If its happening here at the PG yard its most likely happening at our other yards" He adds. One of these days he says cars are going to jump off the rails and somebody going to get hurt or even worse get killed.

Gee people lets look at the safety records of both CN and BCR over the past ten years, humm something to think about.

Good point about owning the tracks palomino. However, I suspect that Cn is responsible for maintaining them to a standard set by Transport Canada as well as BC under such laws as teh BC Railway Safety Act. Same sort of situation as with the highways in BC.

If anyone wants to look up stats for railway safety in Canada, you might enjoy reading this for your bedtime pleasure:

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/rail/index.asp?section=2

I skimmed through the 2003 report ... my take of it is that serious accidents have really not declined. It is the non main track incidents which have shown a decline, as well as dangerous goods releases from non accident situations.

It is not broken down by railway, but gives some order of magnitude of what might be considered as the current state of teh union with respect to safety.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/stats/rail/2003/StatsSummaryRail03.asp#figure_1