Nine years after the July 13, 2013 crude oil train runaway wreck at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that claimed 47 lives and destroyed much of the village’s downtown, the Government of Canada and Transport Canada continue preliminary work on building a bypass rail line.
Few will forget that horrific day, July 6, 2013, when a crewless, runaway Montreal, Maine & Atlantic crude oil train with five locomotives and 75 loaded DOT-111 tank cars carrying volatile Bakken crude rolled into Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and derailed. The resulting fireballs and explosions (contrary to popular belief, the derailed cars did not explode; their contents ignited after the tanks had been breached) killed 47 people, and a large section of the downtown area was destroyed. The tragedy’s aftermath, as well as accidents involving other CBR trains in the U.S. and Canada, led to a long regulatory process resulting in the stronger DOT 117 tank car as well as several changes to CBR operating regulations.
A new rail line will be constructed to bypass a Quebec village where dozens died in a fiery derailment in 2013.
Criminal charges have been dropped against the railroad behind the fiery derailment of a runaway train in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that killed 47 in 2013.
