First of all, yes, the standards are a little less than they seem to be. A guy who inspects or works on a boxcar is called a car mechanic or a car man, and a CCI is a certified car inspection.
For quite a while at the former BC Rail we had cars that were going between the Gibraltar Mine and north Vancouver. They received no certified car inspections, no CCIs at all. The wheels were not inspected and the brakes were not inspected by a qualified car mechanic.
I'm not sure of the difference in the Association of American Railroads, the AAR, standards. I can't remember what they call it in Canada, but I'm sure they follow the American standards.
Another bad thing is...I heard a story. I tried to get confirmation of this before I came to this committee, but I believe it to be true. The car men were inspecting a train before leaving Prince George. They typically put a red tag on the car that says “bad order”, and they staple it. Then a freight crew or a switching crew will switch the car on to a track to be fixed before it leaves the station. The car men go down one side of the train track and down the other side, and every once in a while they put a red tag, a bad order tag, on the side of this boxcar. Half an hour later a foreman came along and pulled the tags off the side of the boxcar.
I believe that story to be true. I don't have confirmation, but this is one instance. I'm not sure why they did it or why they would do it.
In my submission, I have a couple of letters and a little information on the differences in inspections and maintenance standards from the former BC Rail. Obviously, it's now CN.