Transport committee  No. The railway employee who is in that high rail truck that is actually running out on routine inspections on the rail line is just as important as the chief safety officer of the corporation in making that happen. If there is any reluctance, for example, to do whistle-blowing o

Transport committee  With tragic consequences if they don't.

Transport committee  Well, the effectiveness has to be monitored. We've already had some concerns expressed by the Auditor General, and if there any concerns about the implementation of safety management systems that come out of any of the TSB reports that we're awaiting, then those should be promptl

Transport committee  Because we have a fully integrated rail network between Canada and the United States, because both Canadian railways operate extensive track in the U.S., and because they're equipping their locomotives to meet the American standards, I think we have to observe that integration.

Transport committee  Yes. This is an administrative issue because railways have indicated back to the government that they cannot meet the original deadline of 2015, which was mandated by congressional legislation. It's still an open question as to when. What is not an open question is whether it is

Transport committee  I think the important thing is that it has established that the railways have to have their own safety culture; they have to have responsibility for safety at the highest management levels. It isn't something that is just responding to problems identified by government investigat

Transport committee  The problem is that PTC, depending on where you are in the world, is really a generic term and has different meanings. There are very specific implementations of different kinds of positive train control. The Japanese bullet trains, shinkansen, have had complete automated train

Transport committee  I don't think it's hundreds of times a day, because—

Transport committee  Hundreds of times a year, but I think perhaps once a day. Now, many of those incidents are occurring at very low speeds in rail yards and so on, but it's not only driver inattention; the interpretation of those signals is extremely complex. There are many, many different colour

Transport committee  No, unfortunately—

Transport committee  On the locomotive, but it's—

Transport committee  But it has no value if it isn't also implemented by the wayside systems along the track—

Transport committee  —and that is an expensive component that must be addressed, whether it has to be addressed with private money solely. The railways are the only mode that has to pay for all its own infrastructure. To solve this problem it may not be something that can just be left to the railway

Transport committee  Well, the Canadian Pacific line up the Ottawa Valley avoided major population centres because it passed south of Ottawa through Smiths Falls. Of course many towns are on the railway lines. Many of the towns owe their existence to the railways, as did the town of Lac-Mégantic. So

Transport committee  Also, the New Brunswick and federal governments are being almost completely silent right now on the abandonment of the Intercolonial Railway between Bathurst and Newcastle, New Brunswick, which is severing VIA Rail's passenger route from Montreal to Halifax and is taking away an