Despite new penalties and tougher rules around safety management, experts say the current regime is far from sufficient to ensure railways steer clear of another catastrophe
“Have they made the improvements necessary to prevent another Mégantic? My answer to that is no,” said Bruce Campbell, an adjunct professor in environmental studies at Toronto’s York University and author of “The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied.
After Lac-Mégantic, Transport Canada launched an overhaul of safety management systems – a form of self-regulation where the government audits reports submitted by railways. But nearly a decade later, companies “are not yet effectively identifying hazards and mitigating risks,” the safety board determined last year.
“For every railway and every railroader, safety is job one. Canadian Class 1s are industry leaders in safety and have lower train accident frequencies than their U.S. counterparts,” CEO Marc Brazeau said in an e-mailed statement. “They’re still relying so heavily on 19th-century braking systems. Electro-pneumatic braking systems would impose a cost, but they would have prevented Lac-Mégantic,” Campbell said.
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