Rail Safety Brief

Present by

RAY BILSKY

OSHAWA, ONTARIO

Ending Era of the Railway Culture.

ECONOMICS OF MOVING FRIEGHT

A 100 car freight train today traveling from Perry Sound Ontario to Toronto will use apx 500 gal of fuel. This train moves about 6,000 tons of freight train. Compared to transport truck that moves 25 tons of freight from the same destination and use 25 gals of fuel. The fuel saving is enormous. As the cost of fuel rises the future of moving freight by rail will increase. Trains have the capacity to carry enormous amounts of weight ranging from .5 to 2 tons per ft of train length. Multiplied by the average 1 mile (5000 ft) to over (8000 ft) train that’s 16 million lbs of energy in motion all based on a model for profit using technology from the early 19th century

Our country needs a new strong system to accomplish this. If trends where to changes from JUST IN TIME delivery, rail traffic will increase dramatically. Possibly expansion of passenger travel will increase to bring the rail lines back into the glory.

MANAGEMENT OF THE SYSTEM

The present management of the system safety is broken. It could be compared to NASA after the Loss of the Challenger Yes the railways united this great country but in doing so had to be granted animinty of responsibly of any wrong doing. This culture needs to change.

Recommendations Transport Canada should take over the rail movement system. This is similar to ATC in the airline industry. Let’s call this new system RTC. Over the years air traffic controllers have improved the systems efficiency and safety record. Let that record speak for itself.

HANDELING ACCIDENTS

We need a new system to handle rail accidents.

When an accident happens we first look to any environmental injuries, we spend millions of dollars saving a fish in some remote stream. Yet fail to address the poor soul whose lives have been disrupted by forced evacuations. Many of this people have little or no money set aside for radical life changes or the expenses caused by a rail disaster. We got money for fish but not people.

The commission should further canvas the past 100 rail accidents and find out how the displaced people live where affected. Was there fair compensation or just accident cost reduction of the rail company part?

Too often the buck gets passed to the innocent person’s insurance company along with uncalled for deductibles and depreciations. He didn’t plan to have a freight car end up in his back yard.

Recommendations

The Gov of Canada with the cooperation of the Superintendant of insurance set up a fund, call it a tax on rail freight tonnage. A tax based on cents per mile per ton moved of freight. When an accident happens local judges step in an award on the spot compensation to displaced people. No it’s not a cash cow but a basic relief fund to cover the reasonable expenses. Judges should have some guidelines to work from.

RAILWAY BULLEYS

The railways use a corporate business plan to reduce their cost in accidents. They bankrupt you with legal cost. The average citizen losses his rights to a fair hearing. As example the Toronto Star reported the settlement figures of a recent court battle between a company and CN. The company sued CN for $75,000 the combined legal bill was over $400,000. Could you see an average citizen spending three times the loss on legal fees? That citizen would have to wager his life savings to take on the giants.

Request

1. Would the commission investigate the number of law suits filed against the Railways. 2. How many get settled

3. How many are abandoned.

A rail car comes of the tracks demolished your companies building, destroys stock and equipment beyond you insurance limits. You’re in a vulnerable position you repair your business and have little money to pursue the law suit. So you walk away.

MAKING EMPLOYEES RESPONSIBLE

Train engineers need to be held responsible for blocking of rail crossings past a certain time limit.

Recommendations

Post signs stating the waiting limit and a reporting number

GRASS FIRE ACT

Vegetation grows unchecked by most rail lines. The Federal Grass Fires Act stipulates that, railways or local fire deptments are to eliminate these threats. In May of 1999 a CP freight train started a 20 mile grass fire starting in Markham Ontario and ending at Oshawa.

This grass fire required the services of every fire dept that stretched apx 20 miles from the fires source. You might say we had a local national emergency 20 miles by 20 miles square.

To this date the local Oshawa fire Dept chooses to ignore any request to reduce the potential fire threat. Over the years the CP tracks have been a regular source of grass fires causing needless damage to the local residents residing by the tracks.

If this commission was to ride the GO Train from Oshawa to Toronto. You would find vegetation growth total unchecked along the CN Route. If after a long dry spell a passenger train was to derail. Emergency services might have to deal with not only the accident but a raging grass fire. The fire could have the potential to claim more lives on top of the accident.

The author would like to point out that airports cut the grass to elimate this risk in the event of an aircraft accident. The last thing we need is trapped people burring to death in a survivable aircraft that was needlessly consumed by a grass fire. The aircraft culture is far more safety oriented then the rail culture.

RAIL ACCIDENTS The author would like to comment, and also offer engineering solutions to some recent rail accidents.

WHITBY ONTARIO

Two years in January at Whitby Ontario a CP freight train lost a wheel that resulted in a cargo container that crushed two women to death. Strange as it may seem days before the accident the author reported to CP rail services a bad thumper rail car. My office is located about 150 feet from the railway tracks. Over the past thirty years I’ve reported many such instances to CP Rail.

Years before that accident I determined that a simple seismograph could detect these defects in passing trains wheel.

RECOMNEDATIONS

Rail lines are equipped with seismographs when near heavily populated areas. With automatic reporting to central train Transport Canada Control Center. Possibly the seismographs could automatically send stop the train commands to the visual light signals.

Just for fun why not ask local college students to build and secretly install one. There is plenty of how to designs on the internet. Don’t let the railways culture stiffel this one. If not the newspapers will pick up on this one.

GAMEBRIDGE ONTARIO

On a Saturday afternoon heading northbound on Hwy 12 the author was stopped one car back from the CN rail signals at Gamebridge Ont. I observed a south bound freight train rock from side to side. The motion was so pronounced I considered abandening my car to a safe distance. After the trains passage I examined the tracks and noticed a dip in one of the rail.

Two or three days later a derailment occurred. I reported this story to T C Rail safety officer. Sometime later they determined the cause was frost heaving between the rail line bed and road bed. It took CN months to fix the dip in the rail. I have pictures to document such.

Recommendation

1. AT every rail crossing post a 1 800 number to a Transport Canada Office for citizens to report potential concerns. End the railways self policing.

2. Train Engines should have a set of laser beams plus GPS positional information that reports and record frame twist in the engine frame caused by uneven rail bed. Constant monitoring in the answer to preventing accidents. (Author to explain in more depth)

3. A sensing system be installed on high speed engines drive wheels frame assembly that measure the heaving that can occur in rail lines. Again with GPS reporting. ENGINE COLISION

Hardy a week passes without an accident occurring between a train engine and motor vehicle. From the Railways perspective the train engines are so massive that the impact demolishes the involved motor vehicles, whereby the Train engine has paint scrapes.

Companies that maintain our national highways have faced similar problems but with an engineered solution that saves lives. Road vehicles working on busy highways will have a sacrificial truck outfitted with rear deceleration soft crash guard. When a vehicle runs into the rear of this truck the apparatus decelerates the crashing vehicle which allows a controlled survivable crash.

RECOMMENDATION.

Design Install and Test a forward facing crash guard on the front of a Locomotive. Well call this a CAR DEFLECTOR. The CAR DEFLECTOR would be deployed when a vehicle in stopped on the tracks of the approaching high speed train. The CAR DEFLECTOR would extend 24 ft by a set of fast acting air cushioned pistons. Possibly a giant air bag would also deploy. The front most portion of this device would be angled to the right to gently displace and shove out of the harm’s way the stopped vehicle.

This is similar to a giant snow plough with smarts. Injuries occur when humans are either accelerated or decelerated too quickly. With the technology in smart airbags today that measure a person weight and deploy accordingly the is an achievable piece of engineering.

VEHICLE RAIL CROSSINGS

Every year we read about needless cars being struck at rail crossings. There is new technology that could help reduce the numbers

RECOMMENDATIONS.

Most busy rail crossing have drop down gates. Use laser beams to cross scan a crossing for vehicle obstructions. This could be further verified by ground sensors used at most modern stop light intersections. This information would be feed to a PLC (programmable logic controller) Stop the train signals could be generated from these computer monitoring crossing stations. I suggest the commission contact companies that make stop lights and there controls for further possibilities that can a will improve safety.

FENCING Pedestrian traffic crossing a rail line in built up areas is a major problem. At the Stephens Road Bridge in Oshawa, we observe and average of 10 to 30 pedestrians use the tracks as a short cut per day. Kids play under the bridge throw rocks at passing trains for amusement. Due to a grass fire 7 years ago CP Rail has not rebuilt the damaged fence. There also have been numerous objects left by the tracks that were used in attempted derailments.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

A three tier national fencing standard to be established based on populations density’s in the area.

Level 1- Cattle fencing for rural areas.

Leve2- Heavy gauge 6 ft chain link fencing in more built up areas.

Level3- Heavy gauge 8 FT chain link fencing with barb wire.

Transport Canada inspects rail corridors and issue repair orders. Possibly make the local towns equally responsible for enforcement. Empower the Cities and Towns for direct billing cost to railways for neglected work.

SUGGESTIONS

I recommend the Commission Visit the GM Truck Plant at Oshawa Ontario to observe over 600 Automatic Guided Vehicles in motion. The purpose is to prove the computer controlled machines can interact with each other and humans very safely. The AGV systems are a model idea for future computerizing of rail equipment.

I recommend the commission investigate and build experimental working models of some of the mechanical, computer or scientific equipment desciribed in this brief. This should prove potential concepts and their potential use in improving rail safety in Canada.