On any day in any given year,
Canada’s railways have originated and terminated hundreds of trains and in the
process have moved thousands of carloads of cargo. Most of these movements have
been unremarked, uneventful and without incident. And so it should be!
But what
happens when things do not quite move as they should?
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| CNR train and containers on the ground in the middle of nowhere in winter and definitely not where they should be. Not the same incident as follows but the problem is no different: an expensive mess to clean up and no one benefits. |
This leads to one aspect
of the railway business that has rarely been mentioned let alone written about
in railfan publications. The subject, of course, is claims. In the transportation
industry, claims departments are almost always regarded with disdain; perceived
as the outflow of cash that will never generate any returns. They are the
sometimes quasi-legal departments which will afterward take over the handling
of matters for the movements which were remarked, or had been eventful, or with
incident. Claims are proof of less than perfect systems and services. The
“Raison d’etre” for the Claims Department remains unchanged by time. The
concept still remains the struggle between loss versus compensation for a
perceived liability of an alleged breach of the contract of carriage.
Settling claims is not a
public relations exercise. Claims personnel are knowledgeable and dedicated
professionals who strive to limit their employer’s exposure to liabilities and
at the same time try to negotiate and reach fair and equitable settlements with
claimants.
Derailment! Not a four-letter
word but certainly regarded as one in many claims departments. Derailments are
almost always reported and written about in Branchline Magazine, but what goes
on behind the scenes afterwards? Let’s take a look at a recent incident from a
different perspective; from a railway customer’s perspective.
Shortly after 08:20 on
December 22, 1992, an urgent telephone call came in from CNR. A derailment had
occurred in western Canada at about 00:45 the same date, involving Train 260,
at Evansburg, Alberta, near mile 70.00 on the Edson Subdivision. The CN main
line was expected to be closed for about 24 hours, perhaps longer. Not much
else was known at the moment but further details would follow as they were
known.
What a way to start the day!
Word of CNR’s last minute Christmas gift quickly spread around the office. CN’s
call was not completely unexpected though. New about the derailment had already
been reported on the radio. Following only four days after CN’s Oakville,
Manitoba, pile-up, the media was quick to pounce on news of a second mess
involving the same railway. What the radio station did not report was the type
of train involved in the upset.
Not long afterward another
call came in from CNR. Quite a wreck involving 33 double-stack cars carrying 71
OOCL containers and an unspecified number of containers belonging to another
ocean carrier. Damage to the containers varied from nil to total loss. CNR
carries virtually all of OOCL’s containers moving between Vancouver and eastern
Canada. While OOCL is not CNR, OOCL is certainly one of CNR’s major customers.
Inevitably CNR’s mishaps will involve railcars carrying OOCL containers. 260
was an eastbound train, meaning the containers were carrying import cargo and
all were on the way to either Toronto or Montreal.
Later, a fax was received
from CN listing the container numbers involved. OOCL could now identify what
commodities were involved and which customers would have to be notified.
Telephones would almost literally be ringing off their hooks. No hazardous
cargo; a sigh of relief. No personal effects; another sigh of relief. Personal
effects claims would have to be rated as the most difficult because, 1.) they
involve individuals rather than corporations and, 2.) cargo values are more
difficult to determine because personal effects are used items and are not
accompanied by invoices attesting to their values. This does not by any means
imply that corporations are easier to deliver bad news to. Call a production
manager to inform him that parts he was expecting were destroyed and then
listen if common sense prevails.
Who pays if a customer’s plant
has to shut down? Only an occurrence such as a derailment will prompt
individuals to finally notice the fine print on the back of the bill of lading
and then try to figure out what liabilities carriers are actually responsible
for. In Canada, the rail carrier’s maximum limit of liability for cargo
conveyed by rail in non-domestic import-export containers is surprisingly low. $10.000.00
for cargo in a 20FT container and $20,000.00 for cargo in a 40FT container.
These amounts are Canadian dollars and apply only to the cargo. Most claims for
total cargo loss, even for low value commodities, will usually exceed these
limits. Pity the cargo interests that did not arrange for insurance coverage.
Consequential damages are virtually impossible to recover.
OOCL will also incur losses
greater than the maximum compensations provided for the destroyed and damaged
containers. In Canada, the rail carrier’s limit of liability for non-domestic
import-export containers is $1500.00 per 20FT container and $2500.00 per 40FT
container. Neither amount will cover the cost of replacing a destroyed
container. Worse, these are only starting amounts which are depreciated by a
reproduction value formula dependent upon the age of the container at the time
of the derailment. Unless the containers are almost brand new, OOCL will end up
with only a fraction of the starting amounts.
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| Trains following cannot drive around obstacles like this. They wait. |
Gridlock quickly occurs on
the main line as trains are held up, so the railway’s first priority after a
mishap is to reopen the line. This takes precedence over cleaning up the mess.
Neutralizing hazardous cargo may be the only exception. Restoring the line to
service involves either moving of or destruction of the wreckage. The railway’s
claims personnel sent to the scene have to quickly determine which badly
damaged shipments can be salvaged and which have to be condemned. Their
on-the-spot decisions can involve several millions of dollars of freight and
equipment, however, with little or no information at hand only years of
experience and gut feelings can be relied upon. It is a thankless job.
The following day OOCL was
informed that their damaged containers would be moved from the wreck site to
Edmonton to be surveyed and to have the cargoes reloaded into undamaged
equipment. Containers which were involved in the derailment but escaped major
damage would be moved to their intended destinations later in the week.
Eastbound and westbound CN trains tied up because of the mishap were being
re-routed over CP Rail. Delays were running 24 to 48 hours behind pro forma
schedules.
CN’s main line was reopened
within 48 hours and train schedules slowly returned to normal. As of this
writing the derailment has been quickly forgotten by most as old news, however,
OOCL’s claims against CNR for cargo and container damages are still in process.
These claims cannot be discussed at this time, but we can instead take a look into
another incident that occurred quite some time ago…
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| Twenty years later OOCL (and others) containers still suffer the occasional beating while moving by rail. On September 23, 2010, at approximately 23:35 Eastern Daylight Time, Canadian Pacific Railway freight train 159-23 derailed 2 locomotives and 11 loaded cars at Mile 22.2 of the Winchester Subdivision near Saint-Lazare, Quebec. |
The Four Heifers
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| We may laugh at scenes of old like this, but... |
Claim investigators often
assume the role of reluctant archivists as they prod people’s memories for
seemingly useless details and compile files of notes and documents about incidents
no longer of interest. In the course of investigating some claims, a lot of
information can be accumulated and stored. Old claim files, often overlooked,
can on occasions be a valuable source of information about unusual events that
may not otherwise have been recorded. This next section will be about the
recounting of an actual claim which was made against the Canadian Pacific
Railway eighty-two years ago.
On July 12, 1911, four
heifers belonging to Donald A. Macdonald were struck and killed by a train on
the Canadian Pacific Railway right of way near Milan, Quebec. (This incident
occurred near mile 16 of today’s CP Rail Sherbrooke Subdivision.) Macdonald did
not keep copies his letters written to the CPR and what is now unknown are the
circumstances which resulted in the cattle being on the track.
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| ...but this unfortunately, is the usual result when an animal argues with a train over the right of way. Not a pretty picture. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, loss of cattle in distant rural areas often proved to be a difficult hardship for farms and homesteads that were dependent upon the animals for livelihood and food. |
A letter dated July 31, 1911,
was sent from the Superintendent at Farnham, Quebec, to acknowledge receipt of
Macdonald’s claim in the amount of $140.00 and also to inform him that the
claim was forwarded to N. S. Dunlop in Montreal. How the amount of the claim
was calculated is not known. A subsequent letter, dated August 5, 1911, was
received from the CPR Law Department in Montreal to acknowledge that the claim
had been received.
Evidently processing of the
claim was moving slowly and prompted Macdonald to write a letter to the CPR. A
September 18, 1911 message from the CPR Law Department acknowledged Macdonald’s
September 15, 1911 inquiry and advised that the claim was on hand but had not
yet been investigated.
Macdonald wrote again to the
CPR on October 23, 1911 to inquire again about his claim and the response from
the CPR Law Department stated, “We have been so very busy recently that my
representative has not had a chance to go into your claim, but I expect to
receive his report within a couple of weeks.”
Perhaps it was the nature of
the claim, or possibly CPR’s reluctance to eventually have to make a
settlement; indications were that the claim had been placed aside on someone’s
desk.
On the same date that
Macdonald wrote to the CPR, a note dated October 23, 1911 was dispatched from
P.G. Charlebois, Claims Agent, CPR Law Department to inform Macdonald that
Charlebois would call on him next week to discuss the four heifers killed. It
is not known if the meeting between Charlebois ever took place but most
probably did not. This conclusion is drawn from a scathing December 4, 1911
letter from the CPR Law Department to C.H. Chatfield, the CPR station agent at
Milan, Quebec, which concluded with, “I would have had a man see the family
sooner but for the fact of the bereavement they had on November 7, 1911.
C.H. Chatfield had inquired
about the claim at the request of the Macdonald family and Chatfield was
admonished for a comment made in his letter.
What the CPR letter does not
reveal is the tragedy which had occurred. On the evening of November 7, 1911,
Donald A. Macdonald was walking home alone on the railway track from town to
his farm. He never arrived. Early the next morning, George Macdonald set out to
search for his father. He found the remains of Donald A Macdonald on the
Canadian Pacific Railway right of way. What circumstances occurred will never
be known. It is possible the crew of the train which struck Macdonald were not
even aware someone or something had been struck. Several subsequent trains had
also passed before the discovery was made. None of the trains were known to
have stopped or to have reported anything untoward. By some strange twist of
circumstance, Donald A. Macdonald did not live to see his claim concluded; he
met the same fate as his four heifers close to the same location.
On January 25, 1912, W. F.
Bailey, a representative of the CPR Law Department met with George Macdonald.
An agreement was made to settle the claim for $115.00. Why the claim was
settled for this amount was not recorded. A confirmation letter dated January 29,
1912, was sent from the CPR Law Department to George Macdonald to inform him
that the agreed settlement had been approved for payment.
The final letter, dated
February 22, 1912, from the CPR Law Department reveals that payment had not yet
been made. In response to George Macdonald’s February 18, 1912 inquiry, the CPR
stated, “As you are probably aware it takes some little time for a voucher to
go through the various departments, but you should receive your cheque any day
now.”
In 1912 the CPR empire was
under the reigns of Thomas Shaughnessy and the processing of payments in that
era was known to have been exceedingly slow. The payment was eventually made.
Epilogue
For three years I was
employed in one of Canadian Pacific’s claims departments, however, my interests
in transportation claims then was purely occupational. The cattle claim
recounted here was not discovered until after my departure from Canadian
Pacific.
In 1976 after my grandparents
had vacated their house in Milan, Quebec, a last search was made for anything
that might be important. These letters were found is a box of old documents
which I turned over to my mother to look after. At the time I regarded them as
dusty old letters about some ancient claims and gave them no further thought. Why
my grandfather kept the letters all those years is a mystery. George Macdonald
was my maternal grandfather and Donald A. Macdonald was my great-grandfather.
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| Life's tragedies are often the stuff of stories |
During my last visit with my
parents I remarked about wishing that I had kept the old claim letters found in
Milan. To my surprise, my mother had kept the letters.
When one’s youth is further
distanced by the passing of time, one’s perceptions do change. In 1976 the
letters were ignored as trash; today they are all that remain to recount the
history of people long departed and who were involved in the history of CPR’s
Megantic Subdivision.
If there is a lesson in all
this, aside from the danger of walking on railway tracks, it is the danger of
waiting too long. In 1976 George Macdonald could have provided first hand
details about this event had only the questions been asked. C. H. Chatfield,
former station agent at Milan, Quebec, also survived into the 1970’s.
Readers and writers of
Branchline: if you have an old story on the back burner, railway or otherwise,
do not wait too long to ask your questions or tell your stories. Better yet, do
it now while there is still time.
The Oddblock Station Agent
Addendum
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| At least one more OOCL container bites the dust with CP Rail. |
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| Another view of Canadian Pacific Railway's September 23, 2010, derailment near Saint Lazare, Quebec. |
