In 2022, there were 225 accidents on main tracks in Canada, which is 18% more than the average of the last ten years for this type of track, which represents the main artery of the rail network. The largest railway union in the country denounces fatigue, work under pressure and a lack of personnel in the sector. And among our neighbors to the south, elected officials also point to the role of the precision railway (precision scheduled railroadingPSR), a railway management system.
Created by rail company executive Hunter Harrison, who introduced it to Canadian National (CN) in 1998, PSR was introduced to Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) in 2012. Subsequently, these practices have become quite common in North America with major rail companies.
The main objectives of the PSR, according to its founder? Provide frequent and reliable service, control costs, maximize resources, operate safely. In concrete terms, this system aims to put longer, faster trains on the rails, with reduced transit times to minimize operating costs.
On the ground, however, railway workers observe a more complex reality.
“PSR is about maximizing train length and tonnage, and [réduire] the number of employees. When you have fewer employees, you try to make them work harder. This means longer, more frequent shifts and fewer additional employees to fill vacancies,” rail safety expert and National Legislative Director at the Teamsters Canada union, Don Ashley, explained in an interview with the Duty.
For this union, which represents the largest number of industrial workers in the country, the PSR revolution coincides with a desire to “put the profits and efficiency of their network before human interests”.
“The greater the pressure, the greater the chance of having accidents,” believes Teamsters Canada public affairs director Christopher Monette.
According to data from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), the main-track accident rate in 2022 was 3 per million train miles — a standardized measure to quantify the number of accidents that occur per million miles traveled. Also according to this measure, this is an increase from the rate of 2.9 in 2021. This rate is 24% above the average of the last ten years, 2.4.
Despite this increase, Don Ashley specifies that he cannot establish a direct causal link between the PSR and the accidents. “Security has improved in some ways, but that’s not related to the PSR either, it’s due to technological changes over the years,” he argues.
The total number of accidents, including all the traffic lanes in the network, is down compared to the last ten years.
By email, CP says it “shifted to a precision railroad operating model” more than 10 years ago. “At CP, PSR has resulted in years of sustained improvements in safety and capital investment,” the company wrote. CP claims to be the “safest railroad in North America for 17 years”. He refused to grant an interview to the Duty.
As for CN, the first company to have implemented the PSR in the 1990s, it recently decided to lighten the burden of schedules for employees “with an operating method based on the use of fixed schedules”. “The company emphasizes car velocity, scheduled train departures and safety in order to maximize the capacity of its rail network,” he told us by email. He didn’t want to give us an interview either.
Fatigue, an evil that has become necessary
Last year, the US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure issued a letter outlining concerns about ESP. “Railway workers are sounding the alarm about their fatigue, which they believe to be exacerbated by the deployment of the PSR”, can we read there.
Fatigue, Christopher Monette makes it one of his hobbyhorses. “These are workers who are on call 24/7,” he explains. If someone wakes up at 7 a.m., then, by force of circumstance, he gets behind the controls of a train at 10 p.m. and is asked to operate beyond twelve o’clock, it is not feasible”.
“There is a difference between having a desire for it to leave on time, and for it to really leave on time”, specifies the one who carried the demands of his members during the CN strike in 2019. issue of fatigue was at the heart of their demands.
In Canada, since 2016, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada has recognized fatigue as a “significant safety issue that needs to be addressed”.
In interview at Dutythe director of investigations (rail and pipeline) of the TSB, Vincenzo De Angelis, confirmed that worker fatigue is a factor that is analyzed during the investigations of rail incidents.
“We speak with the crew to see if fatigue was present. […] We had an investigation recently where we concluded that fatigue contributed to the accident, ”he says.
Even though the TSB has recognized this risk for years, measures have been slow to be implemented by the government. Documents consulted by The duty indicate that new rules “are being implemented gradually, from November 2021 to November 2024” to minimize the dangers linked to fatigue.
In an email exchange, Transport Canada explains these delays by the “complexity of these changes” to be made. Our interview request was denied.
“Since May this year, railway companies have had a system to assess whether employees are fit enough to work. […] We will monitor this in the coming months to see how these changes have impacted the risks. [à la sécurité] “says Mr. De Angelis.
Maximize sends (and profits)
When disclosing financial results in 2018, CP highlighted the importance of “its model of precision rail transportation [PSR] in its profitability. Annual reports of the company peeled by The duty show that the company has seen its profit margin explode by almost 500% between 2012 and 2022.
2012 is not an ordinary year in the history of CP: it corresponds to the moment when Hunter Harrison, the inventor of the PSR, joined the company.
” [Le CP] was a company that was poorly managed, that had no vision, criticizes the dean of the Williams School of Business at Bishop’s University, Reena Atanasiadis. [La nouvelle direction] eliminated everything that was surplus, fired a lot of people. »
And how to explain the apparent stagnation of profits at CN? Mme Atanasiadis points to the fact that the company has been using PSR for longer. “That’s the reason why [le CP] has experienced such growth, while [le CN] continued on his way. […] Suddenly, we see that CP is as capable as CN,” concludes the expert.
Despite the economic benefits he does not deny, Don Ashley worries about the security of operations under the PSR system. For him, the economic incentives attached to this method are harmful: “Incentive-based management compensation under the PSR leads to poor decisions and compromises safety. »
And he’s far from the only one worried. During a hearing of the Committee on Transport and Infrastructure in the United States Congress in 2022, elected officials did not hide their skepticism about the PSR. A member of the National Transportation Safety Board openly acknowledged his concerns about worker fatigue and train lengths, but could not link the PSR directly to an incident.
Apply the rules
According to the Director of Investigations (Rail and Pipeline) of the TSB, certain elements associated with the PSR are the subject of analyzes in rail safety investigations. “We always look at the length of the train and its weight to be sure that it did not have a role in the accident. To date, we have not established a link between the length of the trains and the way they are controlled,” explains Mr. De Angelis.
A US report from the Government Accountability Office (Government Accountability Office) notes, however, that the reduction in the number of employees, in particular in the maintenance of the systems, “can lead to accidents and injuries”.
Even Conservative Senators Marco Rubio and JD Vance recently raised their voices against PSR in a letter to the Department of Transportation. They denounce the model as a potential contributing factor to the major derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3. About fifty wagons, including several containing highly toxic products, then derailed, causing a fire that burned for several days.
Christopher Monette stresses the importance for Transport Canada of adopting effective rules to deal with the risks of the industry, but also of applying them.
“Ottawa is running out of teeth,” he blurts out. It’s very disappointing on their part, and it contributes to the fact that we live in a country where the railway industry is largely self-regulated. The federal government has trouble enforcing regulations and creating new ones quickly when situations arise. Another Lac-Mégantic can occur at any time anywhere in the country. »