Transport committee  There have been a number of them, and we've returned some in places across Canada such as northern Alberta and northern New Brunswick. We had sold them off and then we brought them back on. I'd be guessing on the number.

Transport committee  I'll say two things. Let's be clear; I have no issue providing risk assessments to the municipalities and people who need to see them. If there's some misunderstanding on this.... One thing I cannot do is put them out publicly. We provide them to the government through Transport Canada.

Transport committee  We always try to learn from other industries, but there is a difference between us and the airline industry. We truly are 24-7. Somebody might say, “Listen, planes run all the time”, but a lot of planes, and people, reset in the evening or late at night. With the railroad, it doesn't matter whether it's two o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the afternoon, it's the same thing.

Transport committee  In fact Canada has a framework for what employees can do on the job, specifically the people on the trains, that is much more helpful in being able to give people, those who come in and operate, options for being able to book rest. In the U.S. system—we have a railroad on both sides—it's a different set of regulations and a different set of rules with regard to what the employer and the employees and the union have.

Transport committee  I'll get Sean to jump in here in a minute. You're talking about an accident that happened just over 10 years ago. I got it. We learned some things, like we do from every accident. We learned and it taught us some things that we needed to do differently. If you fast-forward to today, that's what I was talking about with AskRail.

Transport committee  It sounds like Sean answered you pretty well. It came up to 1,200 communities and everything.... Listen, I think it's a great question. Let's put the facts down on the SMS system and the regulations we have. To start off, none of the regulations in Canada were removed. There's the Railway Safety Act.

Transport committee  It has nothing to do with the amount of money. What it has to do with is that you operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You're around the clock. You go across Canada from one end to the other. You deal with weather. You deal with customers that are giving you products. You deal with many influences from outside in.

Transport committee  Madam Chair, I'd like about nine or 10 minutes to go through a quick statement. I hit the key points that were asked of us to come here and discuss. I'm sure there are probably some others and we'll be here to answer whatever questions. Safety is an important subject to CN. I got it.

Transport committee  It's a little early to give you a full breakdown on it. There are a number of things we have in place. Do I have a black and white clear answer? That's the difficulty about these things; we don't have a black and white. We're working through it and we'll see what.... We have implemented the speed reduction, more inspections, looking at different areas that have the same rail types, making sure we have senior presence, and making sure we don't have a people person problem where they weren't inspecting them the way they should.

Transport committee  Michael, was it last year that we looked at the risk assessment over that course?

Transport committee  Michael, do you remember? It was just a couple of days before or the day before.

Transport committee  No. A track inspection and a risk assessment are two different things. The track inspection information you get will feed into what you do with the risk assessment, but they are separate.

Transport committee  It's as quick as possible. The train crew finds out that their train went into an emergency. They call the RTC centre by radio, which is located in Toronto. They tell them they have an incident and it is started right there.

Transport committee  I'm going to ask Sean to answer that even though I was there because a lot of his people did a lot of work to make sure we did that.

Transport committee  Well, you report any time you have an incident and if you need some information, it's a two-way discussion. That's how we do it. We have to understand what's on the train, which we do. The conductor carries the information of what's on the train. We also have it in the computer system.