CN Talks Safety

Monday, September 17, 2007 08:25 PM

Prince George B.C. - It has been a little over six weeks since two CN trains collided, derailed and burned along the east side of the Fraser River In Prince George.

This evening, the railway’s Senior Vice President of the Western Region Jim Vena addressed Prince George City Council to talk about the safety issues. there was lots of talk, but very little in the way of solutions.

The appearance came less than 24 hours after CN’s latest derailment which saw 29 loaded cars of grain off the tracks 30 miles east of Terrace. That train was heading to the Ridley Terminal.

Vena, along with CN’s public relations person Kelli Svendsen told Council CN moves every day in B.C. 13 thousand to 14 thousand rail cars . Vena talked about the dollars CN has pumped into the province and into the Prince George area ($20 million on the intermodal project at the First Avenue yard) $230 million on the Prince Rupert terminal , $100 million on locomotives.

He says the number of incidents of derailments, which he noted as any incident which has to be reported to the Transportation Safety Board, the number of reportable incidents has fallen. He presented year to date figures of 374 incidents in 2006 and 312 this year.

Councilor Don Zurowski asked if CN takes the same level of care in all areas where it operates, Vena responded saying there is no difference “We would not discriminate between a community with 250 people in rural Saskatchewan or a community like Prince George with a population of 80 thousand, the rules are the same. We take safety very seriously.”

Councilor Debora Munoz says she has spoken with many CN workers who have expressed many concerns

after only 50 hours of training and no previous experience someone is allowed to inspect a train
after two weeks of training someone can be allowed to run a train.
maintenance issues, employees expressed concerns about tunnels, especially at Tumbler Ridge
employees are afraid to express their concerns about safety.

Vena says when it comes to employees being worried about coming forward to express their concerns, “I can’t remember anyone being disciplined because they brought an issue forward. First of all, there are several acts to protect employees, on top of that we have an ombudsman and workers can phone in anonymously and this person is sworn to secrecy and will not release that personal information. If locally we have an issue with a supervisor, my phone number is listed to make sure people can task to me. The last thing we need is 21 thousand employees who are afraid to raise issues. We have to do a better job of communicating that we are open for communication."

He tried to reassure Councilor Munoz that the concerns are not founded "Before you become a locomotive engineer at CN it takes way more than two weeks. Secondly, we do have an integrated response plan with the communities we operate through, the rest we will have to discuss at another time but we are more than willing to discuss the operating speeds within the community and the yards, more than willing."

Councilor Murry Krause says while there may be an answer, there appears to be something terribly wrong, especially since there was another derailment today, this time east of Terrace. “I think it’s all relative, and an accident is an accident, is an accident, I think there has to be a better solution than having members of our community very frightened.”

To Councilor Brian Skakun, the length of train is an issue. Vena told Council that the average train is 6,000 feet long and there is no limit on the length of trains. Vena responded by saying he can’t see why people would think CN would run a train longer than can be safely handled. “One boxcar can cost you $80 thousand dollars. At CN safety is the first thing, certainly we want to be productive, but there is a science about running these trains.”

Skakun says the push for profit is a concern to him, “These employees are afraid to speak up, they are worried about their safety. A couple of their co- workers have died, and they are afraid to speak up.”

The amount of rail traffic going out to Prince Rupert could multiply by four times by 2012, and he urged CN to correct the corporate culture. “This community got lucky when that train derailed, it could have been a lot worse, but luck will only get you so far. Luck will only get you so far, as you know,. You have a great deal of good people working for you who need your support."

Vena responded saying “One last point , I have had to tell people their loved ones are not coming home, and if anyone thinks anyone at Canadian National would allow someone to get hurt or killed on the job is missing the point.”

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Posted on Monday, September 17, 2007 08:25 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: REALIST on September 17 2007 9:41 PM

It was all just another P.R. ploy. Noteable comments: "No Product went into the river" (Vena). :"Product that went into the river quickly burned"(also Vena). "The Chekamus (Sorry about the inept spelling)derailment was due to failures in train management and not train length"(Vena). As train length plays a huge part in train management it becomes quit easy to blame train management instead of train length. And my personal favorite comment "we have had fewer accidents this year than last year". This completely ignored the fact that we are in the ninth month of 2007 and thus we have fully 25% more of the year for C.N. to pass last years record. What a load of crap. We have every right to remain in fear of C.N. as they have invested in P.R. instead of safety.

Posted by: active on September 17 2007 9:46 PM

what exactly did this session accomplish?
What was the purpose?

Posted by: highlanderpg on September 18 2007 7:42 AM

Vena states it takes alot more than 2 weeks to become an engineer. The point was a 2 week employee can operate a train. Case in point it wasn't an engineer that was operating the train that lost control and crashed in Prince George. It sounds like a lot of sidestepping to me.

Posted by: trackrat on September 19 2007 11:00 AM

Now I can see CN thinking what they say is true. Managers, like the one involved in the derailment, also fear for their jobs. Cn has now found a remarkable way to fast track a person to the position of conductor,in less time then they did in the past. They have new trainees, with only 45 training trips under their belts, who have just now qualified as conductors, and are training new employees who have just started. Talk about the blind leading the blind for a profit. I shutter to think of what kind of future problems will arise when the older, hardened conductors and engineers reitre, and there kids, who are also just learning to shave, take control over the thousands upon thousands of rail cars that will pass through our towns and cities. In the past, it was exciting to stop at a railroad crossing and see a train pass by. Now I fear for anybody who is stuck first in line at the gates, and has no idea what could happen with the passing of each car.

Posted by: northman on September 19 2007 6:42 PM

I have witnessed first hand that they do not take care in their tracks, you can go to any remote CN crossing on a forest service road and remove the hardware (spikes,creepers ect...) with your bare hands. Also some of the ties are so rotten that the spikes are falling right out of them. This was never like this when BC rail owned the track im mentioning. CN claims accidents are going down when the reality is they should not be happening in the first place.