Railroad to stop oil shipments after Quebec tragedy
The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway plans to stop transporting oil after one of its crude-oil-carrying trains crashed in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic on July 6, an accident that killed 47 people.
The Montreal Gazette reported MMA Chairman Ed Burkhardt said Tuesday the Hermon-based company would stop transporting oil. “It’s proven to be more trouble than it’s worth, and I guess that’s putting it mildly,” he told the newspaper.
Burkhardt told the paper that he hopes the company will resume service possibly this week on undamaged rail lines on the east side of the accident site in Lac-Mégantic. On Tuesday, the paper reported, much of the town remained closed as crews hauled away debris and dug up oil-contaminated soil.
Burkhardt said the freight he hopes to see passing through the town in the coming weeks would include cargo like paper, wood pulp, logs and automobiles. If that freight volume picks up, he said, the company won’t add to the 88 layoffs — 64 in Maine — that it has made in the wake of the disaster.
Burkhardt told the paper, however, that bankruptcy might still be in the cards for the company.
On July 25, the company and its insurer missed a deadline set by the town to pay $7.8 million in cleanup fees for the disaster. Burkhardt told the paper that the company’s insurer has agreed to pay the amount but payments from the insurer to MMA and the town were delayed for technical reasons.
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