Author: David Thomas

Commentary

Precision railroading, with a humane face

One of Keith Creel’s first acts upon becoming Canadian Pacific CEO in February was a call to his counterpart at the union representing the railway’s train and engine (T&E) crews. It was time, CP’s top brass hat told the Teamsters senior rail boss, to restore respect and fairness to the railroad’s treatment of its engineers and conductors.

Canada coal phase-out a ho-hum for CN, CP

The phase-out of coal for electricity generation announced by Canada’s greenish Liberal government Nov. 21 will have no impact on the country’s Class I railways. That’s because nearly all of CN and Canadian Pacific steam coal haulage originates and terminates within the U.S.

Commentary
  • News

The positive legacy of Lac-Mégantic: Zero

Three years ago, in the early hours of July 13, a runaway oil train exploded in the then-idyllic lakeside town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people.

National Dream redux

From the April 2016 issue of Railway Age: From the era of fur-trading voyageurs, the St. Lawrence River Valley between the Great Lakes and Montreal has been Canada’s economic aorta. Solitary canoes gave way to steamships, railways, airplanes and freeways, and the vital artery is now clogged within a smear of yellow smog, often thick enough to taste.

Transport Canada’s “classified” Lac-Mégantic payment

In a curious role reversal, Canada’s former Minister of Transport, now opposition politician Lisa Raitt, has revealed that the Canadian government quietly paid C$75 million toward compensation for victims of the 2013 oil trains disaster that killed 47 in the Quebec resort town of Lac-Mégantic.