Transport Committee on April 16th, 2007

[Gordon Rhodes]

No.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

On those inclines--they didn't?

[Gordon Rhodes]

No, I'm going to correct you on that. You're right, but I'll go one step further. All engines on B.C. Rail--period--had dynamic braking.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

So all engines have it. Dynamic braking is the use of the electrical motors to, in effect, reverse the polarity, which is not an ultimate braking system, but which slows the train down, and which perhaps, in the kind of accident you were involved in, in which your two co-workers passed away--

[Gordon Rhodes]

It would have stopped my accident.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

--could have stopped the train. My understanding is that CN sold off those engines and brought other engines in from other parts of Canada, which do not have a dynamic braking capability now, and they are operating within B.C. Is that correct?

[Gordon Rhodes]

That's correct.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

In reading the reports, both the phase one and the phase two--and my colleagues can address the different areas--I was particularly concerned about the number of loose sills, clearance of handholds, bottom safety supports rods, and defective brake beams. I know these may seem minor, but they put the workers at risk. Ultimately, if the workers are at risk, the train is at risk, and the community is.

The other thing was the issue of these N&Os, notices and orders. The report stated that there were 99 outstanding as of November 2005 that had not been satisfactorily addressed--and 24 of them go back to the year 2000 or earlier. The report says that 53.9% of the 232 locomotives inspected over that period had safety defects. Some were minor and some were major.

What I see in reading this is that it seems to be indicative of a malaise within the operation. Some of those minor ones are naturally going to become more serious. Maybe attention isn't being given to the number of safety concerns. I'd appreciate your comment on that.

[Gordon Rhodes]

My experience is that our workforce has been pared down to the point where we are at a bare minimum everywhere. There's dispatching, which is the RTCs, rail traffic controllers, and on-line supervisors. Something that should be looked at is how much territory an on-line supervisor covers. He's covering way too much territory, in my opinion. But I'm not an expert.

On the maintenance of the engines, the turnaround ratio of engines is very critical; if it sits they don't make money. I understand that. But they're pushing these people in the shops. They don't have the time to take care of everything, so they take care of the basics. They take care of the necessities, like keeping the engine running and the air brakes or whatever, and then they just send it out to shop. And we get it and it's.... Since we went to CN, it has been frustrating to go to work. You go to work and you're wondering how many of my engines aren't going to be working properly and what the problems are. It's very frustrating, and it creates a lot of challenges.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

My colleague Mr. Volpe mentioned the American standards, the FRA and the ARA, I think it is, being used for the two different areas. Some of them are the standards of reporting and the others are the standards of actual maintenance of cars. It appears that CN in particular has been using the American standards, which are a lesser standard than Canadian standards. Are you aware of that?

[Gordon Rhodes]

I can't speak about the differences between the standards. I can speak from my experience working for CN, when it was Canadian-owned, and my experience working for B.C. Rail. Now we've gone to CN again, which is American-owned, and the contrast is immense. There's everything from safety.... When you opened up your rule books and your timecards, safety was number one when it was Canadian-owned; now it's number four.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

One of the American standards is that they don't report incidents under $7,700 U.S. I don't know what that translates into in Canadian money--let's say $8,500 or $9,000. You're talking incidents. You mentioned 86 brake defects, 28 air-brake defects. We have problems in British Columbia in trucking, and we have regular inspections of trucks to make sure their brakes are safe. I'm concerned about that.

[Gordon Rhodes]

You should be. Everyone should be.

There is something I want to bring up, and that is the standards for conductors and enginemen. There is a qualification they should have, on top of everything else. They should be qualified like a carman is. They should be qualified on air brakes, so they are able to look at them and say they're not good. I can say that, but I'm not qualified. I think all enginemen and conductors should be certified so they can say that with no repercussions from the management; they can't intimidate you into going out with them. Because that's what's happening right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I would like to start by thanking you for being here today. You have said some very important things, Mr. Rhodes, for this committee, which has just completed a study of the famous Safety Management System for air transportation. The example of the rail sector was given, where the SMS is in effect at the moment. We asked the representative of the Transportation Safety Board about this. We were told that there were fewer accidents in the rail sector, that is what Mr. Jean said earlier. However, the representative of the Board could not guarantee that the Safety Management System was responsible for the decline in accidents, that it explained why there were fewer accidents.

That is why I find your comments so valuable. What I find disturbing is this: you tell us that some accidents are not reported. There are some derailments that are not reported. With the Safety Management System there are no longer any inspectors in the field. So you are right, you don't see them anymore. There are fewer and fewer of them, because Transport Canada inspectors inspect the system. They do system audits with the company rather than determining whether the equipment is in good repair.

So you are telling us that there are some derailments that are not reported. That means that the Transportation Safety Board is not aware of them and that these accidents are not counted. Now I understand better why the Transportation Safety Board representative cannot confirm for me whether the Safety Management System in the rail sector accounted for the reduction in the number of accidents. You have told us that there are accidents, that there are derailments that are not counted because they are not reported. Is that in fact what you said?

[Gordon Rhodes]

Yes, it is true.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

You said that you would have liked to have a railway police service—as far as we are concerned the Transport Canada police officers are inspectors—you probably know that for several years now, there have been fewer and fewer inspectors in the field to check out your equipment.

Is that true? Have you noticed that?

[Gordon Rhodes]

Yes, that's what's disturbing, because in all the years I've been on the railways, I've only seen a handful of Transport Canada or provincial inspectors, a handful of times. On the mountain alone in Lillooet, I've gone up and down it a couple of thousand times, and I might have seen one.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

You were on a particular route, as you said, which I would not describe as the most dangerous route, but it is the route with the most twists and turns in your region. Could I use the term “dangerous”?

[Gordon Rhodes]

It is definitely one of the most dangerous. We require patrols in front of our trains—and that's another issue I was wanting to bring up here. It's a safety issue, because I found out in talking to Transport Canada after an incident on the mountain that it wasn't a derailment and therefore wasn't reportable as an accident; it came so close, but it wasn't an accident, so they didn't have to tell them about it. It's as close as I would ever want to come.

I lost my focus there. What was the question again?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I was talking about the Safety Management System when I said that the route on which you were is probably one of the most dangerous in the whole system.

[Gordon Rhodes]

Yes, I can say that it probably is. And I would highly recommend that in order for this committee to understand the scope of what's involved there, they should go there. One of the biggest problems with where I work is that we're in such an isolated area that decisions are being made in Memphis, decisions are being made in Chicago, decisions are being made in Montreal, in Edmonton, in Winnipeg, and in Vancouver, and these people are making these decisions and have never been there.

I had the top Transportation Safety Board fellow interview me after my accident. It was his first time, I believe, and he acknowledged that where we work it's another level of operating, higher than anything else he's seen. So it's very challenging.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

You say that the people who make the decisions do not come out to see what the situation is like on the ground, and that there are no Transport Canada inspectors. So ultimately, you are left here to your own devices, are you not?

[Gordon Rhodes]

You could say that we are, and it's very challenging.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.