CN Derailment Near Terrace

Monday, September 17, 2007 08:31 AM

Hours before appearing at Prince George City Council to talk about safety concerns, CN has another derailment.

This time, 30 miles east of Terrace. CN spokesperson Kelly Svendsen says 29 rail cars, filled with grain, are off the tracks near the Skeena River.

“It happened around 2:30 this morning” says Svendsen. No one hurt.

Crews are on the way to the scene but it will be tomorrow before the line has reopened. “This was a grain train enroute to the Ridley Terminal” says Svendsen.

This is the line which will be the link between the new Fairview Terminal and the rest of the world.

This evening, Senior CN reps will appear before Prince George City Council to talk about the railway’s safety record and plans to improve its safety record. The appearance was requested by Mayor and Council in the wake of the August 4^th collision and derailment in Prince George.

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Posted on Monday, September 17, 2007 08:31 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Andyfreeze on September 17 2007 8:49 AM

And here is the big problem with only one set of tracks!
This is going to cause major issues with the port if they get a serious derailment,washout,slide,etc.
Having these ships wait for cargo is a very expensive proccess!
One set of tracks simply will NOT cut it!!

Posted by: Gofaster on September 17 2007 9:37 AM

Here we go again...
"NO HARM NO FOUL", says CN...
governments will beignoring CN's bad safety record again...

Posted by: jonnypg on September 17 2007 9:38 AM

when we need news,CN never seems to fail...

Posted by: Parrothead on September 17 2007 9:46 AM

I hate to say I told you so, but....

;-)

Posted by: Chadermando on September 17 2007 10:18 AM

cn's logic, "move on, move on, nothing to see, its only a grain car"...

What would 26 coal cars do to the river, or worse yet....

Posted by: owl on September 17 2007 10:21 AM

Maybe they need training wheels .....

;-)

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on September 17 2007 12:05 PM

Training wheels! HeeHee!!

So if CN needs another set of tracks is there room to install another line??

Maybe this is one of those spin-off things people said would bring a boost to the local economy? How many cars will the new lime pit at Giscome need? Do you think the new pellet plant (when the air is OK) will be shipping any containers by boat?

Posted by: diplomat on September 17 2007 12:09 PM

Poor track record, indeed!

(Groan).

Posted by: owl on September 17 2007 1:18 PM

Believe it or not, the pellet plant ships their products in cars which I believe are similar to grain cars. Multiple handling ... more $ for supplying... poorer quality of product due to multiple handling ... less $ for product sold ..

A possbile opportunity for someone to design a container which will handle pellets ..... we can design and manufacture right here in PG ......

Now Palopu will come back and tell us 1001 reasons why we can't design and manufacture these things here and they have to be built in Quebec, Sweden, China, Brazil, or God knows where ....

;-)

Posted by: He speaks on September 17 2007 3:19 PM

It appears that there must be a fundamental reason why CN can not keep their trains on the tracks. We need them to be a world class transporter of goods if we are going to take advantage of Port of Prince Rupert.

Are the employees doing sloppy work?
Is management not being able to execute their responsibilities?
Do we need to put a caboose in the back again?
Do we need to shorten the trains to 80 cars and have more of them?
Is CN lacking qualified workers, thus over working skilled workers, and or putting unqualified workers into situations that they are not trained for?

Something is fundamentally wrong. All Transport Canada has to do is interview the front line workers and they will tell you why there are so many derailments. Don't ask management, they do not know all the details and or will not reveal them readily.

Posted by: northman on September 17 2007 5:14 PM

Now that CN is owned by an american corporation they dont care what is going on here. Its an out of site out of mind deal. All we are to the big guns at the company are numbers and dollars figures. I think the CN workers are doing what they can with the table scraps that the senior management gives them to work with.

Posted by: Palopu on September 17 2007 5:58 PM

These projects such as the Prince Rupert Container Port were costed using trains in the area of 200 to 250 cars per train. This allows them to handle 400 to 500 40ft Containers per train, and thus make mega bucks. Its called economy of scale. If you were to go to 80 car trains, and add on the caboose (and I assume you mean an extra man, otherwise whats the point) you would increase increase your handling costs by 200%, and this would probably kill the whole venture.

CN has to get serious about its safety, however at the end of the day, they are a world class transportation company. Dont forget that they run from Pr Rupert, Ft Nelson, all across Canada, and South Into the USA. Thousands and thousands of miles of track. Hundreds of thousands of Railcars, etc;

Posted by: Palopu on September 17 2007 6:13 PM

Owl. The cylindrical Hopper Cars that are used for hauling **bulk** pellets have a capacity of approx 200,000 lbs. In other words one Hopper car can haul the equivalent of 4-40ft Containers. Containers handle approx 50,000lbs. So in essence if you double stacked the containers on a rail car you would need two rail cars to haul the same tonnage as one Hopper car.

In addition containers are designed to stack on one another on ships, (probably 4 or 5 high) to maximize the available space, and of course revenue per trip. Any container that was designed to load or unload bulk pellets would have to meet the standard container criteria, so I doubt if it would happen.

If someone did design it I am sure that we could get the City of Salmon Arm to build them for us.