October 7th, 2024

CPKC railway hit with violation notice after derailment in Maine

By The Canadian Press on May 2, 2023.

A Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive is shown at the main CP Rail train yard in Toronto on Monday, March 21, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

MONTREAL – State authorities in Maine have hit Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. with a violation notice over fallout from its cleanup efforts after a freight train went off the tracks last month.

On April 15, a CPKC train hit a track washout in a wooded area near Moosehead Lake in northwestern Maine, some 220 kilometres southeast of Quebec City, setting several cars ablaze.

Government officials say they sent a notice of violation to the railway after heavy construction equipment deployed to access the crash site crushed culverts and caused a significant amount of sediment to enter streams, in violation of a pollution control law.

Melanie Loyzim, commissioner of the state’s Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, sent a second letter instructing CPKC to implement erosion control measures immediately.

CPKC said last month that locomotives and four derailed lumber cars went up in flames, with crews using booms – absorbent, tubelike barriers – to contain spilled diesel fuel.

The Calgary-based railway said three crew members were taken to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and released the same day.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 2, 2023.

Companies in this story: (TSX:CP)

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