Calgary on Edge After day fearing exlosive CP train would topple into Bow River

The dark wooden bridge that crosses the Bow River is a great, gaping mystery to the city of Calgary; its origins and safety record unknown, held totally under the provenance of Canadian Pacific.

That was true even at 3:30 a.m. on Thursday, when the deputy fire chief of the flood-besieged city received even more bad news; an eastbound 102-car train derailed, leaving six sleek black rail cars filled with flammable petroleum product stranded on the 101-year-old Bonnybrook Bridge as it slowly collapsed into still-swollen Bow River.

It would drop about 15 feet throughout the day, bringing Calgary closer, inch-by-inch, to another disaster after a week that had been unbearably chalk full of them.

With resources stretched by more than a week of unprecedented flooding that trashed thousands of homes, bridges and roads, the mayor lashed out at Canadian Pacific. He also lamented the municipal government’s lack of control over CP’s domain.

“How is it that we don’t have regulatory authority over this when it’s my guys down there risking their lives to fix it?” Mayor NaheedNenshi said.

Once again, a swath of the city was shut down, creating gridlock so intense that some drivers complained of commutes stretching three hours. Again, Mr. Nenshi begged employers to keep their employees at home.

Hunter Harrison, the CEO of CP, said the piers of the bridge were built on gravel, not bedrock. The flood caused the bridge to tilt, then crack, derailing the cars as they travelled across the track early Thursday at 14 kilometres per hour.

By Thursday afternoon, acting fire chief Ken Uzeloc said the bridge had been stabilized. The fuel-bearing tanks were anchored in place by heavy train cars weighted with grain and stones. Secondary tethers tied each tank in place.

There was a small chance the train could explode.

“There are still flammable liquids that are in there,” he said. “We have that possibility … but my concern was more that a floating rail car would float downriver, taking out a bridge that would impact the stability of Deerfoot Road.’’

With the train secure, city officials reopened major arteries time for rush hour. But they still faced hours of arduous work.

If crews tried to pull the cars while full, they could snap open like a pill capsule, he said. Instead, empty cars were paired alongside the damaged track and three pumps were installed to transfer the petroleum distillate, a product used as a solvent in polishes, paint thinner and paint.

It would take several hours to complete pumping, Chief Uzeloc said; they would then decide how to move the empty cars off the track.

James Carmichael, the regional senior investigator with the TransportationSafety Bureau, said two people were on hand to investigate the incident. He believed it was too soon to say whether the flood weakened the bridge.

“Right now they are trying to stabilize it the best they can to do the work they need to do to get it cleared off,” he said.

The derailment forced a nearby wastewater treatment plant to evacuate, leaving untreated sewage spilling into the urban waterway.

Messrs .Nenshi and Harrison met on Thursday, but it was clear the derailment had strained relations between city hall and one of the city’s largest companies.

“I’ll be very blunt. I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this,” Mr.Nenshi said. “We’ve seen a lot of people lose their jobs at CP over the last year. How many bridge inspectors did they fire?”

Mr. Harrison disputed the mayor’s remarks, saying the Bonnybrook Bridge was inspected five times, although it was unclear when the company looked at the structure.

“We’ve talked publicly about the downsizing, but we’ve not done anything with the engineering personnel or bridge inspectors or supervisors of the bridge inspectors,” Mr. Harrison told reporters at the Emergency Operations Centre in Calgary, where he was to meet the mayor.

“It was clearly a failure of the piers at the bottom of the river,” he said. “We couldn’t have seen anything from an inspection on top unless there was severe movement as a result of the failure down below.’’

After the meeting, Mr. Nenshi said Canadian Pacific Railway had apologized for the chaos caused by the train and that he and Mr. Harrison and both agreed to work together more on safety.

Source: nationalpost

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