Front Street was closed to traffic for several hours on Friday morning after a locomotive derailed on New Westminster’s waterfront.
A locomotive pulling a train derailed in the 300 block of Front Street, where the tracks cross Front Street, at about 3:30 a.m. on July 3.
“The engine locomotive derailed on a broken track,” said Coun. Chuck Puchmayr, a member of the city’s railway advisory panel. “It stayed upright. There was no dangerous goods issue. There were no dangerous goods on the train. It was the result of a failed rail.”
Puchmayr said Southern Railway of B.C. was able to get a train in from behind the derailed locomotive, disconnect it and move it over onto the other line so traffic could resume on Front Street.
Puchmayr was alerted to the derailment while doing an interview with a radio station about the anniversary of the tragic train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec on July 6, 2013.
“Those were trains that were unstaffed and sitting idle on a hill. The brakes didn’t hold and they went at extreme speed and went downhill and derailed quite violently,” he said of the Quebec tragedy. “The chances of that happening here are none. Those steep grades, we did have trains travelling at that speed. Nevertheless, we do have trains carrying dangerous goods in our city, we always have. Those trains are the lifeline to a lot of industries in the Lower Mainland. Taking those trains off the tracks and putting them on the road would really multiply the volume of heavy trucks on the road.”
According to Puchmayr, the train was travelling at 10 miles an hour when it derailed early on July 3.
On April 26, an empty CN boxcar derailed as it was crossing Front Street under the eastern side of the parkade, across from Westminster Pier Park.
Officials from Southern Railway contacted Puchmayr about the derailment. He questioned whether there’s cause for concern, given that two derailments have occurred in the same area in the past three months.
“Southern Rail has purchased an ultrasound machine, a quarter-of-a-million dollar machine. Now, rather than relying on a company coming in twice a year and doing it, they now test those rails four times a year because they have their own equipment. The last time that was tested, obviously it didn’t show any serious fatigue,” he told the Record. “It actually takes an ultrasound image of the track, looking for any hairline cracks or any major cracks that may result in future failures. And they still happen, obviously.”
In addition to the two derailments near the Front Street parkade, three grain cars ran off the tracks near East Columbia Street and Brunette Avenue on April 5 and five train cars carrying grain derailed along Quayside Drive because of a broken track last July.
