The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) released its engineering laboratory report (LP148/2013) Thursday, March 6, 2014, analyzing the petroleum crude oil contained in tank cars of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MM&A) train that derailed on July 6, 2013 in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The derailment and resultant explosion killed 47 people.
TSB said that, as it noted in its Sept. 11, 2013 news release announcing the issuance of safety advisory letters to Canadian and U.S. regulators, test results indicate that the level of hazard posed by the petroleum crude oil transported in the tank cars of the occurrence train was not accurately documented.
For this report, samples were collected from the nine tank cars at the end of the occurrence train (MMA-002). These tank cars did not derail and were pulled back to Nantes, Quebec, after the accident, TSB said. Samples were also taken from two tank cars located at Farnham, Quebec (MM&A's Canadian headquarters). These two tank cars were part of another unit train operated by MM&A (MMA-874) that was transporting petroleum crude oil of the same origin as the oil carried by train MMA-002.
All the samples were tested and examined, TSB said, adding that it is releasing the engineering laboratory report documenting this comprehensive analysis in advance of the final investigation report.
TSB added, "If at any stage during the remainder of the investigation the TSB identifies additional safety deficiencies, it will communicate directly with regulators and the industry, and inform the public."
The report can be accessed here.