In brief: After the Stanley Park miniature train’s Good Friday derailment, a provincial regulator blamed poor track conditions on the logging of three trees and rainy weather.
Technical Safety B.C.’s July 5 report indicated staff did not gauge the condition of the track.
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation officials originally refused to call the incident a derailment.
Bob Mackin
Logging in Stanley Park contributed to the March 29 derailment of the miniature railway’s refurbished wheelchair-accessible car.
Publicly, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation blamed a “minor incident” for the one-day cancellation of the Stanley Park Railway’s Easter Train. But, internal messages obtained under the freedom of information law said what happened on March 29 was a derailment. Nobody was injured, but it cost taxpayers $25,000.
Tree stump near derailment site at Stanley Park Miniature Railway (Technical Safety B.C.)
Contractor Hedgehog Technologies memo to Rosemary Yip from Derek Puzzuoli on March 31 said the incident happened at 4:30 p.m. March 29. Hedgehog pointed to significant rainfall 48 hours prior to the incident, “which can lead to settling of the track in sensitive areas.
“One of the train operators noted multiple instances of feeling as if a carriage was dragging in the area prior to the incident,” the report said.
Provincial regulator Technical Safety B.C. (TSBC) went further in its July 5 investigation report. It blamed the logging of three trees in the area.
“The removal of trees in the location of the derailment allowed sunlight to warm the track causing linear expansion as well as allowing quicker growth of the existing trees and the tree roots passing under the area of track,” the report said. “The recent wet weather contributing to the softening of the ground.”
The derailment could have been avoided if the employees who conducted a walk-through inspection had a working track measuring gauge. However, it was not operational and “had not been used in some time,” the TSBC report said.
The engineer was driving the train to its storage area without any passengers, but at a higher rate of speed than when passengers were aboard, said TSBC. The added weight of the accessibility ramp on the final car, tight tolerances of new, unworn bogey wheels and track that was unlevel and too narrow caused the bogey wheels under the accessibility ramp to come off the track.
So, TSBC explained, the bogey turned sideways, dragging the wheels 30 feet (or 10 metres) along the track. Several rail ties and the bogey air brake line were damaged.
In messages obtained under FOI, John Brodie, the Park Board’s acting director of business services, texted general manager Steve Jackson more than an hour after the incident.
“Looks like a major mishap (derailment) for the train happened as they were transporting it back to the barn after the day was over,” said Brodie’s 5:52 p.m. message. “Damaged tracks, damaged train, and [train operations lead] Rose [Yip] thinks we’ll likely need to cancel the remainder of the weekend. Kind of worst case scenario for the train.”
Ten minutes later, Brodie emailed the communications department to report “there was a derailment.”
But the word derailment was not included in any of the Park Board’s public communications about the incident or the TSBC-approved reopening on Easter Sunday.
Jackson refused to comment to theBreaker.news. Park Board marketing and communications specialist Megan Kaptein said “we considered the derailment a minor incident.”
In July, four citizens with Save Stanley Park filed a negligence lawsuit against the Park Board and its contractor, B.A. Blackwell, hoping a judge will halt further logging.
Between October and March, crews logged more than 7,200 trees in Stanley Park, a fraction of the 160,000 that the Park Board said would be removed due to the Hemlock looper moth infestation and wildfire fears. The Park Board is spending almost $7 million on the operation.
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