CP Train derailment...Oshawa Ontario Canada

Apparently 27 rail cars went of the track this week in Oshawa...CP this time...some of them ending up in residential backyards. People were evacuated until it was considered save to return to their homes. Toxic cargo. ...sooner or later there must be some changes made. What are we waiting for? Do we really need a huge disaster to happen and only then take any needed action,
should we not be proactive and fix this now?





I wrote about this sort of thing a little while back....Ratatat..see details on my blog.
Derailments will happen occasionally, one would think with modern technology this could be avoided or minimized...27 cars in a city that's serious stuff and just to clean the mess up...pay the customers for their lost or spoiled cargo and collect insurance is not good enough.
I believe we lost CN and CP...both sold out to American interests. Can't see them investing in new and relocated facilities any time soon although that should be a mayor consideration...get dangerous cargo..or in fact any cargo away from residential areas...
We live in the second largest country on earth, surely the time has come to invest heavily in the future and improve the railway system. I can not comment much on reasons or causes for these derailments, antiquated rail lines and equipment are only some of the causes....but there is one cause I can and should comment on.

Jim D. two doors up from my house in the city ( Torronno) worked for CN. It was his job to replace bearings on rail cars. Apparently they wear out after a while and need to be replaced.These things were not like the ball bearings we are familiar with. But instead they were cast brass and lead hunks of metal...sort of kidney bean shaped,about 40 pounds or more a piece, and they are placed around the Axel pressure or weight point of the rail car. As they wear out, they need to be replaced. Instead of installing and replacing these bearings Jim would simply take them to a scrap dealer...never mind the old ones...the brand new bearings never got installed. He did that for years. Sometimes several hundred pounds a week, straight from the repair yard brand new stuff to the scrupulous scrap dealer.
I would imagine that sooner or later as these old bearings get worn out....the axle runs hot, ceases up and there you have it...one of many reasons for a derailment....
...see my blog of Feb.17/09 with these comments...:-
Rut-tat-tut-rat-ta-tut.....a train with about 100 rail cars rumbles through town..a small town on lake Ontario, Port Hope or Cobourg..does it really matter?The point is,that these rail-links are old and should have been replaced long ago.Rail is about the cheapest way to move goods unless there is a possibility of traffic by water, a barge system.And yet we see thousands of transport trucks 18 wheelers with often overtired operators slugging it out on our highways.Does it not make sens to review our transportation system? Is it not time to have a good look at where we are and where we should be going with this. During economic so called hard times we should find or create the resources to fix or renew this part of our infrastructure. People are looking for jobs and things to do and are less likely to want to go on strike for unreasonable demands. We should claim our railways back, they once were the backbone of what we were as a country and this would be the time to update the antiquated system .Years ago I suggested to build a rapid rail-link between Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal with an international Airport in or around Kingston..If this system would have been implemented we could have, today one of the most modern commuter, people moving systems in the world.Instead multi millions were wasted acquiring land in Pickering ( east of Toronto) and a totally useless airport was built in Montreal ( Mirabel,now mothballed).