Author: David Thomas

  • News

Quebec studies feasibility of open-access iron ore line

With China’s slowing economy depressing iron ore prices, this would seem an inauspicious time to build a third railway from tidewater to the interior wilds of the Labrador Trench. Nonetheless, to keep life in its grand plan to develop its vast north, the Quebec provincial government is contracting Montreal-based Canarail to report on the feasibility of a new 200-mile line from Sept-Iles on the Gulf of St. Lawrence due north to the high-grade ore deposited 200 million years ago when a sea of iron-rich magma burst through a rift in the earth’s crust.
Commentary
  • News

Transport Canada resumes modest rail safety regulation

After a train crash of criticism by Canada’s Transportation Safety Board and the country’s auditor-general, Transport Canada is softly moderating its three-wise-monkeys approach to railway regulation.

Commentary
  • News

Federal hazmat regulator AWOL from North Dakota oilfields

Whatever the unrevealed reasons for Cynthia Quarterman’s (pictured) Oct. 3, 2014 departure as head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), a change at the top may reverse the federal regulator’s much-criticized lethargy in fixing the core cause of exploding oil trains.

North Dakota seizes initiative in CBR degasification

The vital other shoe in crude by rail reform will drop not in Ottawa or Washington, but in Bismark, N.Dak., where, in the void created by federal inaction, officials are preparing to use state jurisdiction over natural resources to order the degasification of petroleum at the wellhead.

TSB cites lax Transport Canada oversight in Lac-Mégantic disaster

Chronic laxity by Canada’s transportation regulator is identified by the country’s accident investigator as the primary underlying cause of the July 6, 2013 derailment and explosion at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, of a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train carrying 7.7 million liters of mislabeled crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation to Irving Oil’s refinery at Saint John, N.B.

Canada accelerates transportation review

Acknowledging that the country’s 19th century railway network and its regulatory regime are not up to the demands placed upon it by 21st century shippers, Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced July 25 an accelerated timeline for a comprehensive, arm’s-length review of transportation legislation.

Canada TSB clears interim CBR reforms

Canada’s transportation accident investigators gave the country’s rail regulator, Transport Canada, a passing grade on interim emergency directives introduced in April to reduce the chances of crude oil train explosions such as that which devastated downtown Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, on July 6, 2013.