We all knew this was coming.

Do not be surprised when a "new" railroad company emerges-- with no "connections"(and thus no obligations to creditors)  to the MM&A or the MM&A(canada) to run the same freight over the same track with the same engines and employees. hopefully with not the same tragic results.

Oh well just a way to get out of doing what is right

What do people think of Ed Burkhardt? Think he'll recover from this? 

You know the old Army adage . . . One aw-sh*t cancels a hundred attaboys.

Burkhardt was able to get together a good organization to re-invent what had been mostly Soo Line, a railroad in pretty good condition with a friendly reputation.  He gets lots of attaboys for doing a good job on a budget there.

However, he not only mis-handled a crisis, but had failed to do as the big roads have had to do in holding the employees to a high degree of rules compliance accountability.  

The FRA was always interested in my testing records and at least twice a year they came out with me to see if I was administering meaningful tests and doing it properly.  BNSF also had a process of oversight to see to it that managers did not simply put in numbers of easy tests.  Good testing finds improper behavior and enables the railroad and the employee to correct it before bad things happen.  This occurred in Canada, where the FRA has no jurisdiction, but one would have thought the Canadian equivalent agency exercised similar diligence in oversight of safe operating compliance.  Apparently not.

Whatever Burkhardt's railroad was doing was not adequate, or else nobody outside Quebec would even know there was a place called Lac Megantic.

Time to go quietly, Ed.  You soiled your nest.  No more fanfare.  No more awards.

Well, the next chapter has started: the Canadian government has suspended the operating license of the MM&A. just saw the article on Google news.

This will really put a crimp in propane supplies for Maine, since most of it comes down from Quebec.

Gunny

Kent:

Yours is an excellent question.  Here in the U.S., the Surface Transportation Board can issue an Emergency Directed Service Order, in effect appointing another railroad to operate the property and provide service to customers until the mess can be sorted out.

I believe the Canadian CTA, their regulatory equivalent to our STB, has the same authority to issue an Emergency Directed Service Order.  I'll note that this is of particular interest to me, since one of my employer's production sites is served by the MMA and a complete loss of service will shut us down and result in the loss of quite a few jobs.  We are working with a Canadian transport attorney right now to determine what options are available to us.

Curt

Kent, i didn't expand on the news as i was in abit of a rush yesterday when i posted, i thought that interested parties would look up the news on their own. The Canadian authories suspended the operating licence in Canada only, due to the fact that the third party liability insurace policy of the MM&A(canada) was only 25 million. Cleanup costs for the disaster are being pegged at north of 190 million. US regulators are in talks with 4 of the US regional rail operators to take over operations in the US portion of the MM&A to provide rail service to the US customers of the MM&A.

Ther are several news reports available to interested parties-- Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, etc. all have reported on the developments in the MM&A debacle.

FEC fan:

What Maine has done is largely political "window dressing".  The state hasn't the authority to give any other railroad authority to operate over MMA within the state.  Since MMA is in bankruptcy, only the trustee can make that decision.  Alternatively, if MMA fails to provide service within Maine and the trustee is not taking steps to remedy that situation, the state and affected shippers could then approach the STB and seek the emergency DSO that I mentioned previously.

Curt