The corporate fashioning of a scapegoat: The engineer of the MM&A train, Tom Harding
Ed Burkhardt, the repulsive chair of Rail World,the parent company of MM&A has gone from blaming the Nantes Fire Department, to blaming the sole "crew" of the runaway train, Tom Harding. Even if Harding did fail to properly set all the brakes, he's scarcely the person to blame. The media and Burkhardt, have gone after Harding with alacrity. Burkhardt quickly blamed him and suspended him without pay. Despite the media playing up an incident last year which Harding was responsible for, he has a very good safety record. How long had he been alone on that train? It's unfair to make one man solely responsible for a train with 79 unsafe tanker cars filled with oil.
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According to Yves Bourdon, an executive of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, which owned and operated the train that was carrying crude oil through the Eastern Townships, Harding was asleep at a hotel in Lac-Mégantic when he heard the explosions.
Bourdon said Harding jumped on a rail tractor and managed to pull the pins to release nine tanker cars that would otherwise have added fuel to the flames, risking his own life: “When he heard the explosion and heard what had happened, he released the couplings and pulled off nine wagons,” Bourdon told radio station 98.5 FM Tuesday morning. “If not, if those nine wagons had stayed there, there was a possibility with all the heat that was there and all, of other explosions and also fire,” Bourdon said.
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McKenzie and others pointed their fingers rather at the company, which they said let its trains and tracks slide into such a state of disrepair that were it not for the lack of slope in Farnham, the same kind of accident could easily have happened there. A train derailed in downtown Farnham just a few months ago, McKenzie said — luckily it was empty and travelling slowly.
“When you see their equipment and the tracks, it’s all rusting; there are piles of earth and junk around the train station, which is falling apart,” McKenzie said. “How does Transport Canada allow this company to keep operating? It’s a tragedy and it could easily happen here.”
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http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/M%C3%A9gantic+Locomotive+engineer+bravery+have+prevented+greater+catastrophe/8637628/story.html