New owner of former MMA railway has $10M plan
The new owner of the former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway said the company won’t send oil trains through a besieged Quebec town until railroad infrastructure is improved.
The Associated Press reported the Central Maine and Quebec Railway, the company that purchased MMA’s American assets last week, plans to invest $10 million in railroad improvements over the next two years. It plans to resume oil shipments in 18 months, including through the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, where a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and destroying a major section of the town’s downtown area.
“In the interest of safety, and I think being sensitive toward a social contract with Lac-Megantic, we have chosen not to handle crude oil and dangerous goods through the city until we’ve got the railroad infrastructure improved and made more reliable,” John Giles, CEO and president of the railway company, told the Associated Press.
Central Maine and Quebec Railway, a subsidiary of the New York-based Fortress Investment Group, is expected to purchase the former MMA’s Canadian assets within the next month after the transaction receives the necessary regulatory approvals.
Last week, Canada’s prosecutor's office charged MMA and three of its workers with 47 counts of criminal negligence in connection with the train derailment and explosion in Lac-Megantic.
Later that week, Maine emergency officials said new federal rules for trains carrying crude oil don’t go far enough to address trains with smaller volumes of hazardous material. The state reported that trains carrying crude oil resumed shipments in March.
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