Transportation Safety Board of Canada Chair Yoan Marier, left, and investigator-in-charge Luc Regis on Tuesday at a news conference about their report on the 2023 train crash.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
A Canadian National Railway CNR-T freight train was travelling at more than double the speed limit before it crashed into the rear end of a commuter train in Montreal, Canada’s transportation safety watchdog said in a report on the 2023 collision.
The Transportation Safety Board officials say the crash occurred after the CN crew apparently disregarded signals warning them to be ready to stop, and that the collision could have been prevented by a failsafe rail control system widely used in the United States.
“Here in Canada, the industry continues to rely slowly on administrative defences, such as regulations, instructions and procedures, leaving safety dependent on humans,” Yoan Marier, chair of the TSB, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
“Without strong physical safeguards, the risk of collisions remains enormously high.”
The system, known as positive train control, can prevent collisions or derailments by overriding human errors, and slowing or stopping a train if it operates unsafely.
Positive train control was fully implemented in the U.S. in 2020 and is used by CN and other railways on most U.S. freight main lines and tracks that carry passengers.
The TSB in 2000 and 2013 called for a version of it to be implemented in Canada, but said that “few meaningful steps have been taken” by the federal government.
The TSB on Tuesday released its final report on the collision, which occurred when the CN train collided with the rear end of a Réseau de transport métropolitain (Exo) commuter train stopped at Saint-Léonard–Montréal-Nord station on the evening of Nov. 21, 2023. Four of the eight passengers and the two crew members on the Exo train board train received minor injuries.
Just before the crash, the CN train had passed a signal light warning the crew to be ready to stop and to limit their speed to 24 kilometres an hour, according to the TSB. Instead, the crew accelerated to 66 kilometres an hour.
When the crew saw the taillights of the train ahead, it was too late, said Luc Régis, a TSB investigator.
“The locomotive engineer initiated an emergency brake application,” he told reporters. “However, at that distance and speed, the collision was unavoidable.”
The Exo train was shoved 46 metres down the tracks before passengers were evacuated.
The two cameras on the CN locomotive’s in-cab video and voice recorders had been “intentionally” covered by pieces of paper, Mr. Régis said, which hampered the investigation.
A spokeswoman for Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland did not respond to e-mailed questions. The Globe and Mail reported that Ms. Freeland stepped down on Tuesday.
Transport Canada spokesman Flavio Nienow said the Transport Minister will respond to the TSB within the required 90 days. Mr. Nienow said the department is examining “short-term measures” to improve train crew adherence to track signals and is working the implementation of a failsafe control system, without providing a timeline or details.
CN spokesman Jonathan Abecassis said the railway is working with Transport Canada on the “longer term issues” of enhanced train control systems and greater access to footage from in-cab cameras. “We learn from each incident and apply those learnings to our network and operations,” Mr. Abecassis said.
Over the past two years, the TSB has launched eight investigations into rail incidents that could have been prevented with the use of failsafe rail controls.
The incidents “reflect long-standing systemic vulnerabilities in Canada’s rail transportation system that have persisted for over two decades,” Mr. Régis said. “This occurrence is yet another example of the risks that arise when there are no safeguards in place to protect against signals not being followed.”
Mr. Régis likened failsafe controls to surrounding each train with a protective bubble. “All those bubbles are being managed by the system, and the system is always looking for none of the bubbles to be touching one another. And if there needs to be interactions between two trains, it is done under very specific controls,” he said.
Transport Canada last year said it planned to draft regulations on failsafe controls to be published for discussion next year. The TSB said the changes are too slow and urged the regulator to implement interim measures to improve rail safety.
These could include simpler GPS systems, such as the one used by Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway, Mr. Marier said.