Canada’s new rail safety standards are inadequate to prevent oil spills, according to the Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary assessment of a February 14 derailment in Gogama, Ontario, about 60 kilometres south of Timmins.
“Preliminary assessment of the CPC-1232-compliant tank cars involved in this occurrence demonstrates the inadequacy of this standard, given the tank cars’ similar performance to the legacy Class 111 tank cars involved in the Lac-Mégantic accident,” the TSB reported.
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“Our initial impressions are that they performed similarly to the cars in Lac-Mégantic,” the TSB’s Rob Johnston told CBC News. “It just speaks for the need for an improved standard for transporting this class of flammable liquids…What we’ve said previously is that there needs to be a more robust standard in place for transporting flammable liquids by rail.”
In the U.S., meanwhile, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-NJ) “said last week’s fiery oil train derailment in West Virginia is just the latest sign that it’s time for the administration to get serious on tank car regulations,” Politico Morning Transportation reported yesterday.
