On July 6, 2013, at approximately 1:14 a.m. EDT, an unattended 73-car Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) freight train carrying Bakken Formation crude oil rolled down a 1.2% grade and derailed in downtown Lac-Mégantic, resulting in the explosion and fire of multiple tank cars. Forty-seven people were killed. More than 30 buildings in Lac-Mégantic's town centre (roughly half of the downtown area) were destroyed, and all but three of the thirty-nine remaining buildings had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination. Initial newspaper reports described a 1 km (0.6-mile) blast radius.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada identified multiple causes for the accident, principally leaving a train unattended on a main line, failure to set enough handbrakes, and lack of a backup safety mechanism.
The death toll of 47 makes this the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history, and the deadliest involving a non-passenger train. It is also the deadliest rail accident since Canada's confederation in 1867. The previous Canadian rail accident with a higher death toll was the Beloeil train disaster in 1864, which killed 99.
Background
The route
The railway passing through Lac-Mégantic was owned by the United States-based Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA). The MMA had owned and operated a former Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) main line since January 2003, between Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, in the west and Brownville Junction, Maine, in the east.
The rail line through Lac-Mégantic and across Maine was built in the late 1880s as part of the final link in CPR's transcontinental system between Montreal and Saint John, New Brunswick, with the section east of Lac-Mégantic known as the International Railway of Maine. A 1970s proposal to reroute the line to bypass downtown Lac-Mégantic was never implemented because of cost. The rail line was owned by CPR until sold in segments in January 1995.
Via Rail discontinued passenger service on the route in December 1994 owing to the pending change in ownership, as Via regulations then prohibited its passenger trains from operating on tracks that were not owned by either of Canada's two national railway companies. The eastern half of the line between Brownville Junction and Saint John was sold to the industrial conglomerate J. D. Irving, which established two subsidiaries: the Eastern Maine Railway and New Brunswick Southern Railway (NBSR). The western half of the line between Brownville Junction toward Montreal was sold to Iron Road Railways (IRR), a U.S.-based company, which established a subsidiary called Canadian American Railroad.
IRR filed for bankruptcy for its subsidiary company in fall 2002. The former CPR main line from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu to Brownville Junction was sold to Rail World Inc. in January 2003. Rail World formed the MMA as a subsidiary and engaged in aggressive cost cutting for freight train operations and continued to defer maintenance on the tracks to the point where much of the track was in marginal condition.
Transport Canada permits a railway to remain in service with as few as five solid ties and 14 damaged ties in a 12-metre (39 ft) section of track, provided trains are limited to 16 km/h (10 mph) on straight flat track. MMA failed to take advantage of millions of dollars of available federal/provincial 2:1 matching infrastructure grants under a 2007 program as track conditions on the MMA line in Quebec continued to deteriorate. By 2013, speed reductions were required on 23 portions of the line, including an 8.0 km/h (5 mph) limit at Sherbrooke yard and 16 kilometres per hour (10 mph) on an 18-kilometre (11 mi) stretch east of Magog.
The train
The freight train, designated "MMA 2", was 1,433 m (4,701 ft) long and weighed 10,287 metric tons (10,125 long tons; 11,339 short tons). The train was composed of
- MMA C30-7 No. 5017 (ex-BN) the main locomotive involved
- remote-control car VB-1 (a former caboose) used to house the Locotrol equipment necessary for MMA's single-engineer train operation
- MMA C30-7 No. 5026 (ex-BN)
- CITX SD40-2 No. 3053 (ex-CP No. 5740)
- MMA C30-7 No. 5023 (ex-BN)
- CEFX SD40-2 No. 3166 (ex-UP No. 3360)
- a loaded box car used as a buffer car
- 72 non-pressure dangerous goods DOT-111 tank cars loaded with Bakken Formation crude oil (Class 3, UN 1267). Each tank car carried 113,000 litres (25,000 imp gal; 30,000 US gal) of crude oil.
The oil, shipped by World Fuel Services subsidiary Dakota Plains Holdings, Inc., from New Town, North Dakota, originated from the Bakken Formation. The destination was the Irving Oil Refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. Shipment of the oil was contracted to CPR, which transported it on CPR tracks from North Dakota to the CPR yard in Côte-Saint-Luc, a Montreal suburb. CPR sub-contracted MMA to transport the oil from the CPR yard in Côte-Saint-Luc to the MMA yard in Brownville Junction. CPR also sub-contracted NBSR to transport it from the MMA yard in Brownville Junction to the final destination at the Saint John refinery. Ministry of Transport senior inspector Marc Grignon opined, "When the shipper is based outside Canada, the importer becomes the shipper." Irving Oil Commercial G.P. was the shipper in this case. 3,830 rail cars of Bakken crude were shipped by 67 trains in the nine-month period preceding the derailment.
In 2009, in the United States, 69% of the tank car fleet were DOT-111 cars. In Canada, the same car (under the designation CTC-111A) represented close to 80% of the fleet. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) noted that the cars "have a high incidence of tank failures during accidents", citing in 2009 their "inadequate design" as a factor in a fatal rail collision outside Rockford, Illinois. Even before the Lac-Mégantic accident, attempts were made to require redesign or replacement of existing cars in the U.S.; these were delayed amidst fierce lobbying from rail and petroleum industry groups concerned about the cost. Since 2011, the Canadian government had required tank cars with a thicker shell, though older models were still allowed to operate.
Freight trains operated by MMA were allowed (not "permitted", see below) by regulators in Canada (Transport Canada) and the United States (Federal Railroad Administration, or FRA) to have single-person train operation (SPTO, alternately OPTO) status (one operator). The "permit" process, which requires public input, was not followed. Transport Canada and the MMA entered a negotiation process at the culmination of which, sometime before the second week of July 2012, the government allowed MMA to reduce their manpower to SPTO. An average of 80 tank cars per train was carried on the Lac-Mégantic route under the supervision of one person only. The Maine regulator had already allowed SPTO status before the first week of April 2012.
In May 2010, former MMA engineer Jarod Briggs of Millinocket, Maine, explained to the Bangor Daily News that "so much could happen in a 12-hour shift on one of these trains, such as a washed-out track, downed trees or mechanical failure. What if the engineer on board were to encounter a medical problem? Who is going to know about it? If there is a fire engine or an ambulance needing to get by a train or a crossing when that happens, it could take hours." Briggs left MMA to work for another railway in 2007; while he described the lone crew member involved in the Lac-Mégantic derailment as "a very good engineer, one of the better on the property", he had long expressed safety concerns about MMA's overall train operations because "if you have two people watching you can catch a mistake. It was all about cutting, cutting, cutting."
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) looked at whether SPTO played a role in the accident. After looking at the circumstances of the night of the derailment, the investigation was not able to conclude whether having another crew member would have prevented the accident.
Air brakes on the train are supplied with air from a compressor on each locomotive. When a locomotive is shut off, the compressor no longer supplies the brake system with air. An air brake pipe connects to each car and locomotive on the train. When air leaks from the various components, the air pressure drops. If the system is not recharged with air, the locomotive air brakes will become ineffective and provide no braking force. When the air brake control valves sense a drop in pressure in the brake pipe, they are designed to activate the brakes on each car. However, if the rate of leakage is slow and steady, the automatic brakes may not be applied as in the case of the Lac-Mégantic accident. However, it is the usual practice for an engineer parking a train, once the train is stopped, to apply the brakes on the cars in the train by releasing air from the train line, and allowing the air in the cars' reservoirs to apply the cars' brakes. Therefore, it would not matter if the automatic brakes applied themselves or not, as the car brakes would already be in the applied position. The train had locomotives that could automatically restart the air-brake system in the event of a brake failure, provided that these locomotives were not shut down, as they would be in this incident. Also, the TSB found that the "reset safety control" on the lead locomotive was not wired to set the entire train's brakes in the event of an engine failure.
In addition to air brake systems, all locomotives and rail cars are equipped with at least one hand brake. This is a mechanical device that applies brake shoes to the wheels to prevent them from moving. The effectiveness of hand brakes depends on several factors, including their age, their maintained condition, their application in conjunction with air brakes, and the force exerted by the person applying the brake, which can vary widely. The TSB estimated that somewhere between 17 and 26 hand brakes would have been needed to secure the train. Had there been a two-man crew, either both locomotive crew, or one locomotive crew and one ground crew, they would have been able to perform a stabilization test, by releasing all air brakes and ensuring just the hand brakes would hold the train. Since there was only a one-man crew, this test was not possible.
Chronology
Eight months before the derailment
In October 2012, the lead locomotive, a GE C30-7 designated No. 5017, was sent to MMA's repair shop following an engine failure. Because of the time and cost for a standard repair and the pressure to return the locomotive to service, the engine was repaired with an epoxy-like material that lacked the required strength and durability. This material failed in service, leading to engine surges and excessive black and white smoke. Eventually, oil began to accumulate in the body of the turbocharger, where it overheated and caught fire on the night of the derailment.
Events shortly before the derailment
The freight train "MMA 2" departed the CPR yard in Côte-Saint-Luc early in the day of July 5 and changed crews at the MMA yard in Farnham, Quebec. After departing Farnham, it stopped at about 23:00 at the designated MMA crew-change point in Nantes, which is 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) west of Lac-Mégantic.
The engineer, Tom Harding, parked the train on the main line by setting the brakes and followed standard procedure by shutting down four of the five locomotives. Harding could not park the train on the adjacent siding because MMA used it routinely to store empty boxcars for Tafisa, a particleboard factory in Lac-Mégantic's industrial park. The Nantes siding had a derail that could have stopped the train from accidentally departing. According to Transport Canada, it is unusual to leave an unattended train parked on a main line, but there were no regulations against it.
Harding left the lead locomotive No. 5017 running to keep air pressure supplied to the train's air brakes and also applied a number of hand brakes. Yves Bourdon, a member of MMA's board of directors, stated that the air brakes of all locomotives and freight cars had been activated, as well as hand brakes on five locomotives and ten of the 72 freight cars. However, the TSB agrees with a July 6 statement to police by Harding that he set hand brakes on just the five locomotive engines, a buffer car, and a car housing the remote control apparatus. Harding also attempted a brake test but incorrectly left the locomotive air brakes on; this gave the false impression that the hand brakes alone would hold the train.
Harding contacted the rail traffic controller in Farnham to advise them that the train was secure. Next, he contacted the rail traffic controller in Bangor, Maine, to report that the lead locomotive had experienced mechanical difficulties throughout the trip and that excessive black and white smoke was coming from its smoke stack. Expecting the smoke to settle, they agreed to deal with the situation the following morning.