Montréal, Maine & Atlantic Update
AS WE WENT TO PRESS LAST MONTH,the Transportation Safety Board of Canada declared on August 1 that its on-site investigation into the runaway Montréal, Maine & Atlantic Railway unit oil train that de- railed, exploded, and burned 40 buildings in downtown Lac-Mégantic, Québec, in the early morning hours of July 6 had concluded. 47 victims perished in the disaster, and by late August the remains of five had yet to be found. The story has unfolded quickly.
In a newspaper interview, MMA Chairman Ed Burkhardt said “We
don’t plan to continue with oil transportation. That traffic is going to go other ways not over our lines.” Some observers think Burkhardt’s com- ment ignores the company’s common carrier obligations, however. MMA has also come under fire from Lac Mégantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche and the province for not paying nearly $8 million in envi- ronmental remediation that’s under way at the site; the town and province ended up footing the bill after the railroad missed a July 25 deadline. In early August the railroad said that its insurance company was not cutting checks and hoped the problem would be resolved soon. With its western connection cut off and the corresponding reduction in traffic, a month after the wreck the railroad had laid off 88 employees, 24 of them in Québec.
On August 6, MMA and its Canadian subsidiary Montréal, Maine &
Thanks to a slow shutter speed and neutral-density filter, ACS-64 No. 601 (left) appears to speed past a grade crossing during a slow-speed runby at the Transportation Test Center on July 27. No. 601 hauled a train of eight Amfleet cars (below left) for the TTC demonstration runs. Amtrak President Joe Boardman and Federal Railroad Adminis- trator Joseph Szabo (above) exult as the test train accelerates to 125 m.p.h. Boardman (below) visits the cab, and No. 601 (bottom) shows the new face of the Northeast Corridor, complete with LED lighting.
TOP: AMTRAK; ABOVE AND BELOW, NICK DʼAMATO
son to Binghamton and the NS Southern Tier to Hornell, but no sightings have been reported. As an aside,only the first three units received the large American flag decals and Siemens/Amtrak lettering. The flag was applied to only one side and the opposite side was blank. Nos. 603 and up are decorated with a large Am- trak logo in the middle of the car- body as shown in preliminary renderings of the units, with a small American flag displayed under each cab side window and the unit number at each end. As more locomotives arrive on
the property, it’s expected that testing will extend to the Keystone Corridor and to the eastern end of the NEC. — WALT LANKENAU
Atlantic Canada sought bankruptcy protection on both sides of the bor- der. MMA Chairman Ed Burkhardt said in a press release that he ex- pected the railroad to resume serving customers along the former Canadian Pacific trackage and that he hoped service could be soon pro- vided for Tafisa Canada in Lac-Mégantic, which had been using trucks during the line’s shutdown. Two weeks later, however, the line re- mained closed. The railroad has said it has $18 million in assets and insurance coverage of $25 million in the face of cleanup costs in Lac- Mégantic, which are expected to exceed $200 million. On August 13 the Canadian Transportation Agency suspended MMA Canada’s certificate of fitness effective August 20, giving the railroad a week to shut down. The CTA had determined that MMA Canada had not demonstrated that its third-party insurance coverage was adequate for continued operation. CTA said “It would not be prudent, given the risks associated with rail operations, to permit MMA . . . to continue to operate without adequate insurance coverage.” Then on August 16 the CTA said it would allow MMA-C to operate until October 1, having re- ceived proof that the railroad does have sufficient insurance. Burkhardt welcomed the news and said the railroad will be easier to sell to another operator “as a going concern.” On August 19 it was re- ported that J.D. Irving’s NB&M Railways subsidiary is may acquire MMA, which connects with Irving’s Eastern Maine Railway at Brownville Jct., Maine. Until the July 6 incident, unit oil trains bound for an Irving refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, operated over Canadian Pacific, MMA, Eastern Maine (EMRY), and New Brunswick Southern (NBSR), so MMA is a key link in Irving’s crude oil supply chain. NB&M Railways owns EMRY and NBSR, and also operates over 200 miles of former MMA trackage in northern Maine as the Maine Northern Railway. Given MMA’s poor financial condition, in late July the province of Québec ordered oil broker World Fuel Services and Western Petroleum Co. to join the railroad in paying for environmental remediation at the wreck site; WFS questioned the legality of the order. Then on August 14 the government ordered Canadian Pacific to contribute to the cleanup costs since it was the originating carrier and “subcontracted” with MMA for the eastern leg of the move. CP responded by saying, “CP is not responsible for this cleanup. CP will be appealing.” About 35,000 barrels of oil spilled as 63 of the train’s 72 tank cars de-
railed and accordioned before exploding into flame. The rear nine cars remained on the track and were pulled clear by MMA engineer Tom Harding and workers from a local industry, who used a Trackmobile and a front-end loader. Harding was the engineer on the ill-fated train, who was awakened at his Lac-Mégantic hotel by the explosion. The fe- rocity of the explosions has made investigators curious about the com- position of the Bakken crude the cars carried. — WALT LANKENAU
CORRECTION: In last month’s Lac-Mégantic story, we said Montréal, Maine & Atlantic started handling unit oil trains “this spring.” We should have said last spring; the first train ran in June 2012. — W.L.
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