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Tag Archives: The Globe and Mail

Lac-Mégantic: Comments

13 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Harding, Lac-Mégantic, Lac-Mégantic Quebec, Montreal, Nantes, Quebec, Sherbrooke, The Globe and Mail

The_Scream

The Scream, by Edvard Munch, 1893 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
Schools: Symbolism and Expressionism 
 
The Globe and Mail
CBC News
 

Lac-Mégantic

The vigils have begun all over the province.  People have been asked not to converge on Lac-Mégantic itself as the little community cannot accommodate crowds.  Quebecers are therefore praying and lighting candles where they live.

A Story in Progress

I have some information, but what happened has yet to be determined.

For the last several months, the same cab driver picked up Mr Harding, the conductor, in Nantes, where he parked the train, 10 kilometres (6 to 7 miles) outside Lac-Mégantic.  This cab driver, André Turcotte, has said that he is not ready to “crucify” Tom Harding.  Moreover, when he got to his hotel, L’Eau Berge (from “auberge”), a local inn, Mr Harding would often share a beer with François Durand, another customer, before going to his room.  He is a quiet, but likeable fellow.  I now gather, from watching various videos, that Mr Harding has been “suspended” without pay and that his mobility is restricted.  This is, therefore, a story in progress.

The Locomotive and the Brakes

It could be that Mr Harding did not tighten the brakes sufficiently.  However, I have read (La Tribune, 12 July, p. 2) that when a fire started in the locomotive, 10 kilometers away from Lac-Mégantic, in Nantes, firefighters turned off the motor of the locomotive, which may have caused the brakes to loosen up and the convoy of tankers to go down hill on its own.

In other words, did Mr Harding not tighten the brakes or could it be that firefighters inadvertently caused the brakes to malfunction by turning off the motor of the locomotive?  This was a heavy convoy and there was a hill.  The brakes may have failed because of the weight of the convoy and sheer gravity.  Besides, were these brakes adequate and in good order?

At any rate, the tankers went downhill and derailed when they arrived in Lac-Mégantic, which is where the explosions occurred.  According to his taxi driver, when Mr Harding left the train, there was smoke, always.  However, during the night of July 5-6, there was more smoke than was normally the case.

When Mr Harding emerged from the hotel, where he spent one or two nights every week, Catherine Pomerleau-Pelletier, a  waitress at afore-mentioned l’Eau Berge, noticed that the engineer looked aghast.  He had left his convoy parked, unattended, 10 kilometers away from Lac-Mégantic, but it was exploding in the middle of Lac-Mégantic.

The tankers were not safe, nor was the locomotive.  There was smoke all the time.  Moreover, the conductor or engineer was the only person operating the locomotive.  In short, this tragedy is starting to look like a case of negligence.  What are the rules and regulations?

The Ice-Storm

Quebec has teams of persons trained to deal with disasters.  The North-American Ice-Storm of 1998 was a major disaster and an eye-opener.  Some localities were without electricity for three weeks and millions of persons were affected.  Quebec chose the expensive option.  It made sure no ice-storm would cut off the electricity.

So, I hope Quebec chooses the expensive option once again: re-route the tracks, make them safer, impose stiff regulations on railway companies, i.e. safe tankers, safe locomotives, more employees—Mr Harding worked alone!  Moreover, if a train carries crude oil and there is no way of re-routing the railway, that train should not run through a populated area, near houses and businesses.

About Trains

Trains are a precious commodity.  They can travel rapidly if the tracks are properly built.  Entering or leaving Montreal can be a serious undertaking.  A few years ago, friends and I waited four hours before we could cross the Champlain bridge.  Montreal is an island.  We need a fast and secure train linking Montreal and Sherbrooke.  There are too many heavy trucks travelling on our highways, not to mention too many cars.

Four more bodies have been extricated from the débris and there will be more.

I wish all of you a good weekend.

four-girls-in-arsgardstrand-1903.jpg!Large

© Micheline Walker
July 13, 2013
WordPress
 
Fours Girls in Arsgardstrand,
Edvard Munch, 1903
(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

“Edvard Munch (12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker, and an important forerunner of expressionistic art. His best-known composition, The Scream is one of the pieces in a series titled The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death, and melancholy.”  (Edvard Munch, YouTube)

Related articles
  • A look at Tom Harding, the train driver at the heart of Lac Megantic disaster (o.canada.com)
  • Who is Tom Harding, engineer at centre of Lac Megantic train explosion? (globalnews.ca)
  • A portrait of the train driver at the heart of Lac-Megantic disaster (globalnews.ca)
  • Lac-Mégantic: a Devastated Community (michelinewalker.com)

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Lac-Mégantic: a Devastated Community

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Canada, Lac-Mégantic Quebec, Maine Atlantic Railway, Montreal, Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway, Pauline Marois, Quebec, Sherbrooke, The Globe and Mail

Lac Mégantic

web-megantic-harding11nw1

 
CBC News: Lac Mégantic Explosion: a video of the tragedy
CBC News: Lac Mégantic, before and after
Globe and Mail: a terrified train conductor
Globe and Mail: these are the lost (Éliane Parenteau Bélanger, a grandmother, has been identified.)
Globe and Mail: latest
Globe and Mail: residents of Lac-Mégantic hurled insults at Edward Burkhardt, the chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway
CTV News: Train Derailment Sparks Explosions in Quebec
See Related Articles: at the bottom of this post
 

Dear Readers,

It has been a difficult week.  As you know, I no longer have a complete WordPress.  I’m being helped but, until now, unsuccessfully.  Fortunately, my fingers know where to go.

Quebec’s Lac-Mégantic Tragedy

On July 6th, a train transporting crude oil derailed and exploded devastating a little town of 6,000 inhabitants: Lac-Mégantic.  Nearly every family in town lost a loved-one.  One body, that of Éliane Parenteau Bélanger, a grandmother, has been identified. DNA samples are required because the bodies of the victims are charred and cannot otherwise be identified.  Some bodies may never be found:  from ashes to ashes.

Newspapers have been covering the event extensively.  Every morning, the front page of my humble Tribune, Sherbrooke’s newspaper, has shown apocalyptic scenes.  In fact, the bulk of the newspaper, six pages this morning, is a chronicle of the tragedy.  Today it featured the worst: grief.  The front page showed people hugging one another.  I was about to write “ordinary people,” but that would be inappropriate.  No one is “ordinary.”

Canada‘s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, was on the scene shortly after the tragedy.  It helped.  As for Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, she was in Lac-Mégantic yesterday.   This also helped.  However, the very first persons to arrive in Lac-Mégantic were people carrying supplies: food, clothing, bedding.  At the moment, thirty-five psychologists and social workers are in Lac-Mégantic helping the survivors, some of whom had to be hospitalized.  They collapsed.

Imagine the conductor, Mr Tom Harding.   He was spending the night in Lac-Mégantic and was awakened by an explosion.  Ironically, the noise he heard came from his train.  It had exploded.   Mr Harding had stopped the train for the night and left it on a hill.  It seems the brake failed.  Mr Harding has already been relieved of his duties by the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Company.  This could be too hasty and insensitive a decision on the part of the Company.  Mr Harding is among the victims of that tragedy.

Mr Edward Burkhardt, the Chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Company, has now travelled to Lac-Mégantic.  People have hurled insults at him. That was a rather ugly scene.

So far, the charred remains of twenty-four victims have been found, but individuals are still missing and a few persons who were presumed dead, are alive.  It would appear fifty persons died.

Logo

Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
July 12, 2013
WordPress 
 
 
 
Bach-Wood Lament
Sir Henry Wood (3 March 1869 – 19 August 1944)
conductor: Leonard Slatkin (b. 1944)
The BBC Symphony

Sir Henry Wood’s ‘Suite No. 6’ is a set of six Bach transcriptions, arranged from various sources, that includes this heartfelt ‘Lament.’  It is the ‘Adagio’ from Bach’s ‘Capriccio on the Departure of His Most Beloved Brother’ in B-flat major, BWV 992.  (YouTube video)

Related articles
  • Five confirmed dead, more than 40 missing after Quebec explosions – Globe and Mail (theglobeandmail.com)
  • Breakfast with the most hated man in Lac-Mégantic (macleans.ca)
  • Death toll climbs to 24 after Lac-Megantic mayor lashes out at railway exec Burkhardt (globalnews.ca)
  • Lac-Mégantic locals flesh out picture of a terrified train driver (theglobeandmail.com)

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More Current Events & a Painting by A. J. Casson

19 Saturday May 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

British Empire, Canada, Fenian, Le Devoir, Monroe Doctrine, National Post, Quebec, The Globe and Mail

Old Maple, by A. J. Casson 1898-1992 (Group of Seven)
Brenner Fine Arts
 

All is relatively quiet in Quebec.  Today is a lovely spring day, so it seems that people are simply enjoying the fine weather.

Bill 78 was voted into law yesterday afternoon.  I have no way of knowing whether or not it will work, but a lot of people will call themselves martyrs.  It’s a mindset.

I am writing my next blog.  It is part of a mini-series called “From Coast to Coast”.  Yesterday I wrote about the Monroe Doctrine, but the plot has thickened to include the Fenians.  It could be that the Fenian raids are the catalyst in the building of Confederation.  Fenians were Irish nationalists who advocated revolution.  Some settled in the United States and started raiding the British colonies to the north from coast to coast.  Some also settled in Canada.

The Fenians scared the Atlantic Provinces into entering Confederation for sheer protection.  The future Canada was also scared into sending the Mounted Police West before it sent the settlers.

I must return to my account of how Confederation was achieved.   There are many things we were not taught in school.  For one thing, Confederation was not altogether a choice, it was a necessity.

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