From what I read in the July 14 story, ” ‘Train from hell’ devastates town” the runaway train carrying oil was supposedly parked on a side line before it started barreling miles down an incline toward the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where it flew off the rails and exploded.
Why was there no one responsible for seeing that the brakes were secured? Why were the tracks from the siding open to a supposedly parked train? Was there no one at Action Central supervising the rolling stock? Was there no one who could have applied braking systems to the tracks? Was there no one who could have called the provincial police to warn them?
I can understand why there was no crew on board that train but the other questions bring to mind the fact that there is a long grade running down from the hills west of us into Clark County. There are many of us who live near enough to the tracks to suffer severely in similar circumstances.
I hope BNSF Railway is willing to reassure us that similar circumstances involving heavy coal-bearing trains would not lead to similar tragedies.
