Train tacks are right out back about a block away.
"After the fireballs, death and dread fill Quebec village" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff, July 11, 2013
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec — Five days later, the downtown here is still a no man’s land, a charred, contaminated place where police and firefighters struggle to empty flooded basements and sift through piles of ash for body parts of 50 missing friends and family....
Questions of liability persist, and the board chairman of the corporation that owns the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, whose train derailed, was jeered Wednesday at a public appearance in Lac-Megantic.
Edward Burkhardt, board chairman of the railroad’s parent company, said the train’s engineer appears to have failed to set the hand brakes properly. “I think he did something wrong,” said Burkhardt, president of the Rail World Inc. board.
So they are going to scapegoat the engineer, huh?
The engineer, the only crew member on a train of five locomotives and 73 cars, left the train parked about seven miles outside Lac-Megantic while he spent the night in a hotel. That procedure is routine, railway officials said, while employees take required rest and wait for replacements.
Only one man on the train? Aside from anything unexpected, what if the guy had an accident or heart attack and died? No one else on the train? I think the cost-cutting in name of profit has gone a bit far. As for this "he failed to set the brake" cock-and-bull cover-up, c'mon!
But later, sometime after a small fire was extinguished on one of the locomotives by local firefighters, the train began rolling downhill.
Oh, so AFTER AUTHORITIES SHOWED up for a FIRE(????), that is when the train got loose?
This SO STINKS of SABOTAGE it isn't even funny. You WANT a PIPELINE now?
By the time the train approached the village, unattended, the oil-filled tankers were traveling at 50 miles per hour, police said.
The timing of the derailment, in the dead of night, could not have been worse for dozens of patrons crowded into Le Musi-Cafe, the most popular nightclub in town and where most of the missing are believed to have been.
The region’s two favorite bands had been playing, and Jean-Pierre Roy, 52, deflected a suggestion to leave, ordering another beer with the woman he’d taken on a first date.
Guy Ouellet’s girlfriend, Diane Bizier, likewise decided to stay late. Marie-France Boulet was snug in her apartment across the street, just behind her negligee shop.
The tanker cars derailed outside, between the nightclub and the negligee shop, and neither Roy, nor Bizier, nor Boulet — nor any of their remains — has been found as gasoline, oil-fouled water, and strength-sapping heat complicate the investigation and recovery.
Downtown basements remain filled with up to seven feet of water, much of it contaminated with oil or sewage, police said. These toxic spaces will need to be drained in a slow, painstaking process that will prolong the search for remains. Some police and firefighters have become ill during the work.
Not a good sign.
Related: Massive tar mat dug up off Louisiana coast, 3 years after spill
Welcome to Louisiana!
Natural gas leak in Gulf of Mexico causes 'rainbow sheen' in water
Hmm. Nothing about that in my Globe.
“It’s something you don’t expect to see, and when you do, you hope it will be the last one,” said Lieutenant Michel Brunet of the provincial police.
I wouldn't count on it will $hale the new black gold.
The irony of the tragedy, Guy Boulet said, is that Lac-Megantic owes its development to the railroad, which has six crossings in town.
“The city was built around the railroad, more than 100 years ago,” Boulet said. “When you hear the whistle, you know that someone is working, and that it’s good for the economy.”
Recently, he said, he noticed a different cargo on the trains.
“When I saw the tankers, I was worried,” Boulet said. “I said, my God, it’s really dangerous.”
Assigning blame will take time, as police gather evidence to present to prosecutors for possible criminal charges.
In the meantime, as the village of Lac-Megantic adjusts to catastrophe in its midst, other concerns take soul-searing precedence.
“I am a little bit angry about this, yes,” said Ouelett, whose girlfriend most likely perished at Le Musi-café. “But mostly, now, it is about the grieving.”
Yeah, don't get angry. Ju$t accept the way of the world -- and who cares if your town gets blown up one night?
Betcha wanna a pipeline now.
--more--"
What, no agenda-pu$hing regarding a pipeline today, Globe?
Related: Blog Derailed By This Post
I keep chugging along.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Quebec premier rebukes head of US rail firm; First victim of derailment ID’d; death toll at 24" by Sean Farrell | Associated Press, July 12, 2013
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec — The first victim of a runaway oil train’s explosive derailment in a Quebec town was identified Thursday, more than five days since the disaster, as the intensity of the fire has slowed searches for the 50 people presumed dead.
Quebec Premier Pauline Marois toured the traumatized town and sharply criticized the US railway’s chief for not responding in person more quickly to Canada’s worst railway disaster in nearly 150 years....
Edward Burkhardt, president and chief executive of US-based Rail World Inc., which owns the runaway train, was also in town. He arrived Wednesday with a police escort and faced jeers from residents.
Marois had earlier faulted Burkhardt for what she said was a slow response, and called the company’s chief behavior ‘‘deplorable’’ and ‘‘unacceptable.’’ She renewed some of the criticism Thursday.
‘‘I already commented on his behavior and the behavior of his company yesterday. The leader of this company should have been there from the beginning,’’ Marois said at a news conference.
Burkhardt said he had delayed his visit in order to deal with the crisis from his office in Chicago, saying he was better able to communicate from there with insurers and officials in different places. He was planning to meet with residents and the mayor on Thursday.
‘‘I understand the extreme anger,’’ he said. ‘‘We owe an abject apology to the people in this town.’’
Burkhardt has blamed the engineer for failing to set the brakes properly before the unmanned train hurtled down a 7-mile incline, derailed, and ignited in the center of Lac-Megantic early Saturday. All but one of its 73 cars was carrying oil, and at least five exploded.
Burkhardt said the train’s engineer had been suspended without pay and was under ‘‘police control.’’
Until Wednesday, the railway company had defended its employees’ actions, but that changed abruptly as Burkhardt singled out the engineer.
‘‘We think he applied some hand brakes, but the question is, did he apply enough of them?’’ he said. ‘‘He said he applied 11 hand brakes. We think that’s not true. Initially we believed him, but now we don’t.’’
Burkhardt did not name the engineer, though the company had previously identified the employee as Tom Harding of Quebec. Harding has not spoken publicly since the crash.
‘‘He’s not in jail, but police have talked about prosecuting him,’’ Burkhardt said. ‘‘I understand exactly why the police are considering criminal charges. . . . If that’s the case, let the chips fall where they may.’’
Translation: they have found their scapegoat for this obvious episode of sabotage.
But why, you say?
Investigators are also looking at a fire on the same train just hours before the disaster. A fire official has said the train’s power was shut down as standard operating procedure, meaning the train’s air brakes would have been disabled. In that case, hand brakes on individual train cars would have been needed.
The crash has raised questions about the rapidly growing use of rail to transport oil in North America, especially in the booming North Dakota oil fields and Alberta oil sands far from the sea.
Yeah, you are going to want those pipelines now.
--more--"
