Transport committee  I have no knowledge or experience with the Quebec northern railway there. I have worked with people who have come from there, who worked in B.C. Rail. They feel that it was very similar, the way it was operating in B.C. Rail. CN is a totally different kettle of fish. It's a different way of running things.

Transport committee  It's worse. In the United States they are not required yet to have a safety alerter on the head end of the train for the engineman--a dead man's switch. In the United States--it could have changed by now--there was no requirement for the SBU. It's the replacement for the caboose.

Transport committee  I really am not sure. No, I couldn't tell you. I think there are other people you can ask who would be more qualified to answer that, probably somebody like John Holliday.

Transport committee  No, they didn't. And if they did, they didn't listen.

Transport committee  No, they didn't listen to us. We tried telling them those trains were too big. Various people tried telling them their trains were too big, that you can't run trains that big. We tried all of that, and that's what our GOI were all about. We have right in our GOI the maximum number of cars that can go up the Cheakamus, the maximum number of cars that can go up Kelly Lake, and there are reasons for it, because of the dynamics of the track in that area; it's so unique.

Transport committee  I'm sure they did. I know Don Faulkner wrote letters. Don Faulkner is one of the fellows who died.

Transport committee  He wrote them to everybody, anybody who would listen. He wrote to Transport Canada and to anybody who'd listen. There are people in New Westminster who know who he was.

Transport committee  You could probably phone Don's wife. If she has kept them on her computer, I'm sure she would give them to you.

Transport committee  No, the only safety that's been improved on.... I tried to be on the safety committee in Lillooet after we were sold, and we were stonewalled for months and told no, you can't be on it; you don't have a big enough terminal, and there's no need for you. It took the accident and my friends to die before I was on the safety committee.

Transport committee  I meant Transport Canada. I feel that Transport Canada dropped the ball with the sale of B.C. Rail. The way I look at it is this: CN is a big multinational corporation with railways going from Mexico to Canada; they have bought and absorbed many railways into their system, and they're experts at doing that.

Transport committee  What experts are you talking to?

Transport committee  What experts? Because the reality is that if they haven't worked the track there, they're not experts; they are people who have knowledge, but they're not experts. You've got to work that track to be an expert, and they're not. That's why CN had those derailments, because the experts said they could do it.

Transport committee  I'd say 24 years.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  The alerter that we have on the head end of the engines--that is basically what people would know as the dead-man switch, the alerter--was a good improvement. The rules on rest were a big improvement. There is now an attempt to erode them, and that is a big concern to me, because in B.C.