Fast Eddie Burkhardt's really bad year

Ed Burkhardt is going easy on the folks of Lac-Megantic because after all, "they went through hell."

That hell took the shape of a hellacious fireball that destroyed the centre of their town when one of Fast Eddie's trains derailed, taking the lives of 47 locals.

That really sucks, but Mr. Burkhardt wants people to know he's hurtin' too. His net worth ain't quite what it used to be, although he is happy to point out that his European operations continue to haul dangerous goods without incident.

Burkardt continues to blame everybody and everything except his own reckless management for the disaster. Local fire-crews caused the trains brakes to fail when they turned the locomotives off.

The lone employee responsible for the mile-long train didn't set enough brakes.

Tank cars aren't build soundly.

The cargo wasn't inspected and labelled properly.

His decision to defer maintenance and cut train crews down to a single operator had nothing to do with it, and while he believes that safety protocols may need to be tightened up, that's something that shouldn't be the purview of heavy handed regulators. It should be left to managers.

Like him.

Reuters busy polishing halo of Lac-Megantic train owner

The article is one of the longest yet published about Ed Burkhardt since the Lac-Megantic disaster. It begins with a description of the Weyauwega disaster in Wisconsin, and then cheekily segues into a quote from Burkhardt;

I have never been involved with anything remotely approaching this in my whole life.

This is beyond disingenuous. What he means is he's never had an accident with this death toll. The more you read about Weyauwega the more you realize that the only reason it didn't have a death toll even greater than Lac-Megantic is shear dumb luck.

The article tells us several times that one of the big differences between then and now is that the Wisconsin train had a two-man crew. Here is Paul S. Bodine writing at Answer.com;

On March 4, 1996, a one-crew Wisconsin Central locomotive entering the center of Weyauwega, Wisconsin (midway between Appleton and Stevens Point, Wisconsin) derailed, sending 34 cars off the tracks, 14 of which were loaded with propane or liquefied petroleum. 

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/wisconsin-central-transportation-corporation#ixzz2ZipMZSyH

In the event, Wisconsin officials were sufficiently concerned with Burkhardt's infatuation with understaffed trains that they made the issue an integral part of an agreement between the Federal Railroad Administration and Burkhardt's company.

Most of the article is a kid-glove treatment of Burkardt and the straight-faced reportage of his self-serving quotes and those of former business associates.

We are repeatedly assured that Ed Burkhardt cares about safety, he really does... even though his entire career has been about relentless cost-cutting and he has been dogged by safety issues for two decades.

Sounds like Fast Eddie has hired himself a PR firm!