CP Rail tries to derail Lac Megantic settlement

Everybody with a finger in the tragic Lac Megantic pie has agreed a settlement.

Everybody, that is, except the US hedge fund Pershing Square which managed to hijack the iconic Canadian company with a mere 10% share-holding.

According to CP Rail, the race to the bottom in railroad safety had nothing to do with them.

They had nothing to do with the small-time operators like "Fast Eddie" Burkhardt, the guy who owned the train that destroyed Lac Megantic.

Fast Eddie is the guy who figured out a crew of two in a railroad locomotive was a safety hazard, because when you got two guys in the locomotive, by golly, they just gonna be distracting one another.

Two mile long tar-sludge tanker trains just gonna be safer with one guy in the cab, not two.

For their part, CP Rail likes to brag about how they revolutionized rail transport in Canada by making trains longer, running them faster, and firing thousands of employees.

Yup, can't see no safety issues there...

Meanwhile, the hedge fund shit-bags who were allowed to rape this iconic Canadian company are going full steam ahead on their share buy-back plan.

Share buy-backs are about as useful to a company as lighting a boxcar full of hundred dollar bills on fire. It's using company cash to artificially pump up earnings-per-share and all that other stuff the money geeks fret over. The intent is to goose share value.

In the case of CP Rail, the share price has tanked about 20% since the Ackman crew started the buy-back.

Luckily, they've still got a few dollars left over to pursue appeals of the Lac Megantic settlement.

Canada determined to host major rail disaster

And we're talking MAJOR here.

Apparently the sacrifice of 47 lives in Lac Megantic last year was just something we're to expect in the "business as usual" department, because mere days ago former CN boss Hunter Harrison was standing in front of a Senate committee crying about the government's over-reaction to that disaster.

So now we have a new disaster, at the great Canadian railroad that Hunter gutted before he gutted the other great Canadian railroad, and from all accounts it is only a matter of dumb luck that this didn't turn into another Lac Megantic.

Neither Lac Megantic nor this latest close call will silence the de-regulators and privatizers in their campaign for zero oversight of railroads. Sooner or later, one of these Bakken bombs will go off in the downtown of Winnipeg, instead of the outskirts of some out-of-the-way non-entity like Wadena.

Then we'll have hundreds or even thousands of deaths, instead of the mere dozens fried in Lac Megantic.

And you can bet that the Hunter Harrison types who have pocketed vast fortunes in making Canada's railroads less safe, will continue whining about over-regulation.

Bangladesh backs initiative to improve working conditions and rail safety in Canada

Today the Honourable Dr. Dipu Moni, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, announced Bangladesh's support for a joint initiative with the ILO entitled Improving Rail Safety in Canada.

Stimulating sustainable economic growth is critical to breaking the cycle of poverty, increasing security, and encouraging equality. Bangladesh's support for this initiative is helping ensure that Canada is better equipped to provide safe and healthy employment for its people, and a safe environment for communities that abutt rail transit corridors.

Bangladesh's assistance will help ensure that Canadian workers, particularly in the shipping crude by rail sector, are properly assessed for fire safety, that unsafe operators are identified for remediation, and that robust and transparent inspections are carried out.

As was so tragically underlined earlier this year, improving the safety of Canada's railway infrastructure is imperative. This project will address the complex and serious challenges facing the sector, and improve safety for workers and local communities, in line with international standards.

Canadian Pacific Railway sees 26% surge in accidents

That's the headline the pros at the Globe and Mail and the Financial Post forgot to write.

When CP Rail released their Q2 results a few weeks ago the business press was full of adulatory twaddle over the phoenix-like rebirth that the genius Bill Ackman and his hired gun, Hunter "Hitman" Harrison have engineered at the railroad.

Revenues up! Net income up! Earnings per share, up up and away!...

Hallelujahs abounded and champagne corks popped as the journos outdid themselves lavishing praise on the "activist investor" and his hatchet-man.

In fact, they were so busy praising the results that they entirely forgot to mention the other item that's taken an impressive leap; The FRA train accident rate.

Right there on page 20 of the Q2 report; the year-to-date accident rate per million train-miles was 1.51 in 2012 and 1.91 this year, an increase of over 26%.

Given that this stat came out barely two weeks after the Lac Megantic disaster, one would think that the newshounds would be all over the revelation that CPR's accident rate has gone up 26% while thousands of employees were being pink slipped.

An accidental oversight, I'm sure.