A New West councillor is praising a report calling for stronger oversight by Transport Canada.
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr said there has to be a better way of auditing rail companies, including those operating in New Westminster. He applauded the report released today by the Transportation Safety Board about last year's train derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Que., which concluded 18 factors contributed to the tragedy, including a weak safety culture, gaps in training and Transport Canada's failure to keep a watchful eye.
"There has to be a better way of auditing how these safety performances are happening and how the railways are dealing with looking at themselves," said Puchmayr, who chairs the city's railway advisory panel. "The government needs to play a bigger role because in the last few years, it has deregulated the industry."
Although skeptical an accident that size would happen in New West, Puchmayr said it never hurts to err on the side of caution.
"The fact we have four railways through our city, I think there would be a real efficiency if you had a bigger role by Transport Canada monitoring safety and infrastructure," he said. "I would rather go to one source of information, rather than trying to get it from four."
James Crosty is a longtime Quayside resident and an active member on the Quayside Community Board. He argued the city could learn some lessons from the report by using its railway advisory panel to negotiate protocols for his community. The panel was set up last year as part of the December 2008 settlement agreement between the board and the four rail companies. The agreement sought to reduce noise and vibrations produced by nighttime operations in the rail yard adjacent to the Quayside neighbourhood.
"After years of saying to New West residents they would develop protocols for Quayside, we have heard nothing, nor has any consultation taken place for emergency response to any rail disaster," he said.
Crosty added the derailment along Quayside Drive this past June, when five cars carrying grain came off the tracks, shows there's potential for catastrophe.
"It could have easily gone onto the road and taken out the bridge," he said. "Nobody looked at the worst-case scenario. It was all a matter of smoothing it over. It should have been a wake-up call and it wasn't."
Crosty suggested the panel should take advantage of their meetings with the rail companies and discuss topics like schedules and types of goods going through.
"We sincerely hoped consultation would have taken place by now, especially in light of a potential derailment in our community," he said.
-With files from Theresa McManus
