As noted last week, the Transport Minister issued an order that reduced speed for trains carrying 20 or more cars by half. This slowdown caused railways to lose nearly a third of their capacity. A revision to the Ministerial order was made on Monday following review. The new speeds for trains either carrying a single dangerous goods commodity moving to the same point of destination or those that include any combination of 80 or more tank cars containing dangerous goods are set at:
- Metro areas: 48 km/h or 40 km/h in non-signalled areas.
- Non-metro in areas where there are track signals: 80 km/h.
- Non-metro in areas where there are no track signals: 40 km/h.
Trains carrying 20 or more cars containing dangerous goods, or a train carrying one or more cars of toxic inhalation gas.
- Metro areas: 56 km/h.
- Non-metro in areas where there are track signals: 80 km/h.
- Non-metro in areas where there are no track signals: 64 km/h.
Unfortunately, another derailment of a train carrying crude derailed west of Fort Frances, Ontario shortly after the order was revised 33 CN rail cars went off the tracks with three tank cars confirmed to be partially leaking oil.
