More than 12 years after the crude oil train wreck at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that claimed 47 lives and led to new tank car regulations in Canada and the U.S., the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has now received the official application to build a 7.75-mile (12.5-km) rail bypass around the village. According to the government of Canada, this allows the project to move into the assessment phase.
Quebec’s Court of Appeal has upheld a 2022 lower court ruling that found Canadian Pacific (CP) “did not have legal liability” for the derailment of a crude-oil unit train at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people on July 6, 2013, according to a report by The Canadian Press.
Nine years after the July 13, 2013 crude oil train runaway wreck at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that claimed 47 lives and destroyed much of the village’s downtown, the Government of Canada and Transport Canada continue preliminary work on building a bypass rail line.
Few will forget that horrific day, July 6, 2013, when a crewless, runaway Montreal, Maine & Atlantic crude oil train with five locomotives and 75 loaded DOT-111 tank cars carrying volatile Bakken crude rolled into Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and derailed. The resulting fireballs and explosions (contrary to popular belief, the derailed cars did not explode; their contents ignited after the tanks had been breached) killed 47 people, and a large section of the downtown area was destroyed. The tragedy’s aftermath, as well as accidents involving other CBR trains in the U.S. and Canada, led to a long regulatory process resulting in the stronger DOT 117 tank car as well as several changes to CBR operating regulations.
A new rail line will be constructed to bypass a Quebec village where dozens died in a fiery derailment in 2013.
Criminal charges have been dropped against the railroad behind the fiery derailment of a runaway train in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that killed 47 in 2013.
