Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced Tuesday that his department will review the deal under the mergers and acquisitions provisions of the Canada Transportation Act, starting with a “public interest assessment” which can run up to 250 days — that is, until June 2, 2024 at the latest.

The deal is “of significant national interest in Canada’s transportation sector and the broader supply chain,” he said, as both companies hold ownership interests in port terminals across the country.

“Healthy competition in the transportation sector is necessary to ensure fair pricing and access for users, especially for Canadian farmers,” he said.

The public interest assessment, he said, will include consultations with Canada’s ports and marine industry as well as other industry stakeholders, government departments and other levels of government, as well as Canadians generally.

Such an assessment is required under the Transportation Act, which says the minister must assess whether a proposed transaction involving a “federal transportation undertaking” raises issues of the public interest in national transportation.

The public interest, from the Act’s perspective, is “a broad concept” and individual transactions may raise different public interest issues or concerns, depending on each deal’s “unique facts and context.”

If, during the minister’s assessment, the deal is shown to raise public interest issues, the Canadian Transportation Agency or any other appointed person can then be tasked with further examining those specific issues.

Bunge’s assets in Canada include oilseed crushing operations and part-ownership, with a Saudi state-owned grain firm, in Prairie grain handler G3.

G3, created in 2015 with the assets of the privatized Canadian Wheat Board, today has port grain terminals at Vancouver, Thunder Bay, Hamilton, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec City as well as a network of 19 Prairie grain elevators.

Viterra, meanwhile, has its Cascadia and Pacific terminals at Vancouver plus terminals at Prince Rupert and Montreal and two at Thunder Bay plus a substantial grain elevator network.

Transport Canada’s review is independent of a review by the federal Competition Bureau, which in June said it will also review the deal. That review also has yet to be completed.

According to Transport Canada’s review guidelines, potential impacts on prices and access to services and facilities are “of prime interest” in any deal that involves a transport undertaking.

“In fully competitive markets these issues will be of lesser concern,” the department says, while “in markets characterized by less competition, such impacts may take on a higher level of significance.”

Other impacts to be considered in such a review could include the “financial viability of the entity resulting from the merger or acquisition” as well as “whether a transaction may adversely affect one or more transportation sectors.”

For its part, Bunge last month announced it has scheduled an “extraordinary general meeting” of its shareholders, to be held virtually on Oct. 5, to approve the acquisition of Viterra.

Bunge said in June it expects to close the merger of the two firms by mid-2024, pending approvals from regulators in countries where the companies operate, and approval from Bunge shareholders.

Separately, the Oct. 5 meeting will seek approval to move Bunge’s “place of incorporation and residence of the ultimate parent company,” to Switzerland from Bermuda. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Transport Canada to review Bunge-Viterra marriage plans appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Interswitching refers to a regulation to ensure shippers located where only a single railway operates can access points that are not served by that railway. The issue is especially concerning for Canadian grain shippers because over 90 per cent of grain elevators are served by a single line.

The government recently announced it will run an 18-month pilot program to test the idea of raising the interswitching radius within the Prairie region from the standard 30 km, to 160 km.

The idea of testing the waters with a “pilot” was a compromise to bridge the gap between the two sides. But the only thing the two sides seem to agree on is that the pilot is a cop-out intended to punt the issue down the field and ask questions already answered.

Transport Canada already tried out the 160-km radius between 2014 and 2016. From the railways’ perspective, that program was sunsetted for a reason, and they see no sense in re-testing an idea that didn’t work.

“Now, the government wants to resurrect a policy it already recognized was a failure,” said Marc Brazeau, president of the Canadian Railway Association.

On the other hand, grain shippers saw the 2014 trial as a success, and they think the policy should have continued.

“I don’t know why we need a second pilot; it should have been made permanent right off the bat,” said Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association (WGEA).

Keep an eye out for an in-depth look at the interswitching controversy in the next issue of the Manitoba Co-operator, where we will examine both positions in detail.

— Don Norman reports for the Manitoba Co-operator in Winnipeg.

The post Preview: Railways, grain shippers at loggerheads over interswitching appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The task force’s final report, released Oct. 6, offered up 21 recommendations aimed at easing congestion in Canada’s ports, filling labour shortages and improving employee retention, and protecting corridors, border crossings and gateways from disruption.

Among the report’s short-term recommendations, for example, are a call to expand the 30-kilometre rail interswitch distance across Canada — a move meant to give shippers more options to move goods by rail on one company’s track before switching to another for the longer haul.

Among the longer-term recommendations, meanwhile, are a call to “protect corridors, border crossings and gateways from disruptions to ensure unfettered access for commercial transportation modes and continuity of supply chain movement.”

Among the bullet points tucked into that recommendation is a call for Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan to “urgently convene a council of experts to develop a new collaborative labour relations paradigm that would reduce the likelihood of strikes, threat of strikes, or lockouts that risk the operation or fluidity of the national transportation supply chain.”

On that point, the task force says “employers, unions and government must find creative solutions to avoid disrupting the supply chain” as “even the threat of strikes or lockouts negatively affects the operation of the national transportation supply chain and, in turn, Canada’s reputation as a destination of choice for doing business.”

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Oct. 6 the government will now move to develop a National Supply Chain Strategy, which “will be informed by the recommendations included in the task force’s final report.”

Among the organizations responding to the task force report’s release, the Teamsters Union said Oct. 6 it’s “pleased” with the recommendations to help fill vacancies in the transport sector.

“However, and just as importantly, the union is alarmed by the report’s language surrounding the right to strike,” the union said.

“Free collective bargaining is not an impediment to supply chain continuity, but this report suggests otherwise,” Teamsters Canada president Francois Laporte said in a release. “Ultimately, unions and everyday working-class Canadian families are not at the source of the world’s current disruptions. Attacking our rights won’t solve the crisis.”

The union said it believes the government’s responsibility is to “create the environment where workers and employers can negotiate freely, without interference, and in good faith.”

“It is wholly unacceptable for the task force to have considered ‘labour disputes’ as events requiring risk-mitigation strategies, on par with climate-related events,” Unifor national president Lana Payne said separately in a letter to Alghabra.

“Limiting worker power by curtailing the rights of workers to strike would contribute to the erosion of job quality, destabilizing the transportation supply chain further — the opposite of what the task force was set up to accomplish.”

Rather, Unifor said, “decades of industry deregulation combined with other anti-labour activities, such as contract flipping and contracting out, have contributed to the recruitment and retention issues plaguing critical parts of the sector.”

“That such a recommendation should surface through a government-appointed task force — in an advanced, pluralist, progressive democratic nation such as Canada — is incredulous,” Payne said in her letter to Alghabra.

“A stable, secure, and skilled workforce must stand atop the list of priorities for anyone looking to solidify supply chains. Sadly, job quality is noticeably absent from the list of action items in the task force’s final report.”

The last major disruptions caused by rail labour disputes in Canada were an eight-day strike by Teamsters-led conductors and yard workers at Canadian National Railway (CN) in 2019, and a three-day labour outage at Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) in March this year involving the company’s Teamsters-led engineers, conductors and train and yard workers.

CN’s signals and communications workers, led by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) System Council 11, also held a 17-day strike this summer but did not actively disrupt CN service during that time.

Among other recommendations to limit supply chain disruptions, the task force report also calls for Canada’s law enforcement agencies and judiciary to be provided with “tools and resources to pre-empt blockades and/or expeditiously remove individuals or objects intending to be used to disrupt nationally critical transportation supply chain infrastructure or operations.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Unions rip supply chain report’s language on strikes appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

CP, however, is questioning the TSB’s conclusions about the braking performance of the train involved, saying those conclusions are “based on inappropriate extrapolation of data and unsupported inferences.”

The TSB on Thursday released its report into the Feb. 4, 2019 crash near Field, B.C., in which two of three locomotives and 99 cars from a 112-car train of loaded grain hopper cars derailed and crashed in steep mountain terrain, killing the three members of the train’s relief crew.

“This tragic accident demonstrates, once again, that uncontrolled movements of rolling stock continue to pose a significant safety risk to railway operations in Canada,” TSB chair Kathy Fox said Thursday in a release.

“It is obvious that more must be done to reduce the risks to railway employees and the Canadian public, reduce preventable loss of life, and increase the safety and resilience of this vital part of the Canadian supply chain.”

The TSB, in its report, calls on Transport Canada to establish “enhanced test standards and requirements for time-based maintenance” of brake cylinders on freight cars operating on steep descending grades in cold ambient temperatures.

It also calls on the transport department to require Canadian railways to “develop and implement a schedule for the installation of automatic parking brakes on freight cars,” putting a priority on retrofits for cars used in “bulk commodity unit trains in mountain grade territory.”

It also asks Transport Canada to require CP “demonstrate that its safety management system can effectively identify hazards arising from operations using all available information, including employee hazard reports and data trends; assess the associated risks; and implement mitigation measures and validate that they are effective.”

According to the TSB’s report, the train was westbound on CP’s Laggan subdivision, which runs from Calgary to Field, about 20 km west of Lake Louise. It started to descend the Field Hill just after 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 3, and while on the “steepest part of the grade,” it wasn’t able to keep its speed below at or below the 15-mph limit.

When the train reached 21 mph, the crew, following operating procedure, stopped the train using its emergency brakes at Partridge, B.C., with about nine miles of steep descending grade still to go. Brake cylinder pressure retaining valves were then set on 84 cars in the train.

With the inbound crew’s shift over, a relief crew was called in to complete the trip to Field, but that crew was delayed in arriving until about 12:20 a.m., by which time the temperature was -28 C and the train’s air brake system “had been leaking compressed air, reducing the brakes’ capacity to hold the train on the steep grade,” the TSB said.

The brake cylinders’ leakage, the TSB said, was “a situation made worse by their age and condition, and exposure to extreme cold temperatures over time” and “after being stationary on the hill for around three hours, air leakage reached a critical threshold and the brakes could no longer hold the train on the steep grade.”

Before the relief crew could start the process to get the train underway again, the train “began to creep forward, gradually accelerating uncontrolled down the steep grade.” The TSB said the relief conductor and conductor trainee left the cab at that point planning to apply hand brakes to try and stop or slow the train but were instead called back to the cab moments later by the engineer for their safety.

The train was able to make its way around back-to-back reverse curves, but eventually accelerated to 53 mph, “was not able to negotiate” a sharp curve right before the Kicking Horse River bridge, and derailed.

The TSB said it identified “a number of safety deficiencies” contributing to the crash, including the “degradation” of air brake systems in extreme cold temperatures; the “limitations” of current train brake test methodologies to account for such conditions; and the need for “additional physical defences” to prevent such uncontrolled movements.

Crew training, the TSB said, was “not specific to the unique operating conditions of the Laggan subdivision. The board also called out the “inadequacy of experience of employees supervising mountain-grade operations on this subdivision.”

The TSB also pointed to a “need for better identification of hazards through reporting, data trend analysis, and risk assessments under CP’s safety management system to support risk mitigation measures.”

‘Fully-trained’

CP, in its statement Thursday, replied that both the locomotive engineers of the inbound crew and the relief crew were “fully-trained, qualified and certified, and were well-experienced in the handling of trains on mountain grades,” and the trainmaster was also “a qualified locomotive engineer with experience on mountain grades.”

Both crews and the trainmaster “agreed on the appropriate steps to be taken in line with existing procedure,” CP said, adding that operating procedure for that specific hill was based on practices set up following “previous incidents” over two decades earlier. “This was not an issue of training and/or experience.”

CP, in Thursday’s statement, said the TSB “has erroneously concluded, based on inappropriate extrapolation of data and unsupported inferences, that the involved train exhibited poor braking performance.”

The board’s report, the company said, confirms the train “was fully functional, met all industry standards and passed all regulatory brake test inspections.”

CP further said its safety management system meets regulations and there were “no systemic hazards that were not appropriately addressed” by that system, including Field Hill train braking performance.

Given “the gravity of this incident and the tragic loss of life, it was extremely disappointing that the TSB misrepresented the facts at today’s news conference and misunderstood key facts about the incident in its report,” the company said.

CP said Thursday it would be talking to the TSB directly about those “inaccuracies and misrepresentations,” and also noted the crash is still the subject of a preliminary inquiry by RCMP. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post CP disputes TSB’s conclusions on fatal grain train crash appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“With extreme weather events occurring more severely and frequently in Canada due to climate change, it is important to have an adaptive regulatory system that responds to these new risks,” the government said Sunday in a release.

The new order “will put in place interim measures while (Transport Canada) works with railway companies to incorporate these fire risk reduction measures on a permanent basis into the existing regulatory framework for railway operations in Canada.”

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra’s order, in effect as of midnight PT on Saturday, requires Class 1 railways in Canada — that is, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway — to cut their train speeds wherever air temperature is above 30 C combined with an “extreme” fire danger level.

Specifically, when air temperature is 30 to 32 C and extreme fire danger level is declared, CN and CP must reduce train speeds to 25 miles per hour on track where permitted speeds are between 26 and 35 mph. On track where the allowed speed is 36 mph or faster, trains in those areas must reduce speed by 10 mph.

If air temperature rises to 33 C or higher in extreme fire danger areas, Class 1 trains must cut speeds to 25 mph on track where the permitted speed is 26 to 50 mph, and to 30 mph where permitted track speed is 51 mph or faster.

The order also requires CN and CP, until Oct. 31, to ensure no train runs in areas of extreme fire danger level, unless a train has been inspected in the previous 15 days to ensure the locomotive’s exhaust passages are clear of combustible material.

The “combustible material” includes any oil accumulation or any “carbonaceous deposits” thicker than 1/8 inch (three millimetres).

The order also calls for CN and CP to develop “interim extreme weather fire risk mitigation plans” within 14 days — addressing, “at a minimum,” fire detection, monitoring and response measures. Those plans must be communicated to municipal and other orders of government, including Indigenous governing bodies

The order also requires CN and CP to complete and implement “final extreme weather fire risk mitigation plans” within 60 days from the date of the order.

‘Suppression capacity’

Saturday’s order follows a previous order that halted all trains on CN’s and CP’s subdivisions through the Kamloops, B.C. area over the weekend, ahead of an authorized tour Friday by evacuated residents to the largely-destroyed village of Lytton, about 160 km southwest of Kamloops.

The government, he said Sunday, “remains committed to supporting those affected by the devastating wildfires in British Columbia and will not hesitate to take any safety actions that are necessary to mitigate these risks to public safety and the integrity of railway tracks and infrastructure.”

The new order also puts more onus on CN and CP to watch for fires along tracks on their respective Ashcroft and Thompson subdivisions in the Kamloops area specifically.

Until Oct. 31, if operating when the fire danger level in the area of those subdivisions is deemed extreme, CN and CP must “incorporate the deployment of fire suppression capacity into their operations that will ensure a 60-minute response time to any fires detected along the right of way of the subdivisions.”

That added capacity, the order said, is meant to take steps to “extinguish or control” a reported fire, or to notify the fire service for the area “if the fire cannot be controlled without assistance.”

In those subdivisions, a conductor on any train will be responsible for spotting for fires and reporting any fires or “smouldering areas” to rail traffic control.

Any “vegetation control” work done along those tracks must be followed by “removal of combustible materials,” the order said.

CN and CP must also make sure “at least 10” fire detection patrols are run on those subdivisions every 24 hours, “unless a train has not operated on the relevant subdivision for a period of at least three hours.”

Saturday’s order also followed an announcement Friday from the federal Transportation Safety Board that it was deploying a team of investigators “following a fire potentially involving a freight train in Lytton, British Columbia.”

CN and CP last Thursday in separate statements pledged $1.5 million and $1 million respectively to wildfire relief efforts in the Lytton area.

The Ag Transport Coalition, which monitors Prairie grain movement by rail on behalf of member grain organizations and industry players, on Wednesday last week reported a “slowdown in operations as a result of the wildfires in the vicinity of Lytton.”

The coalition had reported “the closure of main lines for both CN and CP south of Kamloops effectively cutting off all access to and from the Port of Vancouver” at the time.

“We continue to expect an extended recovery time given the magnitude of the outage and the recognition that this disruption has impacted all commodity traffic, not just grain,” the coalition said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post CN, CP trains ordered to slow down against fire risk appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced the order late Thursday, ahead of an authorized tour Friday by evacuated residents to the largely-destroyed village of Lytton, about 160 km southwest of Kamloops.

The order, he said, “is being put in place in the interest of safe railway operations and to protect residents who are temporarily returning to inspect their homes as safely as possible.”

The order requires CN and CP to “cease movement of trains except for emergency fire response, and maintenance and repair work” on their Ashcroft and Thompson subdivisions respectively, both of which run between Kamloops and Boston Bar, about 45 km south of Lytton.

Trains already in those subdivisions when the order comes into force “are permitted to navigate the subdivisions for the purposes of exiting.”

Asked Thursday — before Alghabra’s order was announced — about rail service through the affected region in the wake of fires, a CP representative said its mainline railway operations had “safely resumed” Monday afternoon. Response hadn’t yet been received from CN as of Friday morning.

“The safety of the public and our employees is our priority and we are implementing appropriate measures, such as increased inspections of our tracks and equipment, during this period of extreme weather,” CP said via email, noting its crews had completed safety inspections of tracks and infrastructure before rail operations restarted.

CP also said its crews “closely monitor conditions and continually watch for signs of wildfires. If spotted, any indication of a wildfire is immediately relayed to authorities.”

The decision comes amid media reports in which community leaders around Lytton cite unconfirmed reports that local train traffic sparked the fires.

The federal Transportation Safety Board later Friday said it deployed teams of investigators to Lytton and to the southeastern B.C. community of Sparwood, about 30 km northeast of Fernie. In its statements, the TSB said it was investigating a fire at Sparwood involving a freight train, while the Lytton fire was “potentially involving a freight train.”

The Ag Transport Coalition, which monitors Prairie grain movement by rail on behalf of member grain organizations and industry players, on Wednesday reported a “slowdown in operations as a result of the wildfires in the vicinity of Lytton.”

The coalition had reported “the closure of main lines for both CN and CP south of Kamloops effectively cutting off all access to and from the Port of Vancouver.”

“We continue to expect an extended recovery time given the magnitude of the outage and the recognition that this disruption has impacted all commodity traffic, not just grain,” the coalition said, noting over 2,600 cars, or about 80 per cent of all idle cars, were in the Vancouver rail corridor. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Feds halt CN, CP trains through B.C. wildfire area for two days appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Garneau announced Sunday he has pulled his Feb. 6 ministerial order on speed limits and replaced it with a new one affecting so-called “key trains” — that is, trains carrying either 20 or more cars of dangerous goods or one or more cars of gases that are toxic when inhaled.

The new limits took effect “immediately” on Sunday and are in place until April 1, he said. Dangerous goods include flammables, explosives, compressed or liquefied gases, toxic substances, corrosives and radioactive materials, among others.

The speed limit for key trains will now be 35 miles per hour (56 km/h) in metropolitan areas, Garneau said. Outside of metropolitan areas where there are no track signals, the speed is limited to 40 mph (64 km/h).

The new order also sets separate limits for “higher risk” key trains, defined as unit trains where tank cars are loaded with a single dangerous-goods commodity moving to the same point of destination; or trains that include any combination of 80 or more tank cars containing dangerous goods.

For higher risk key trains, the new speed limit is 25 mph (40 km/h) where there are no track signals. In metropolitan areas, the speed limit for those trains is 30 mph (48 km/h) — unless the metropolitan area is in a “non-signal” territory, where the speed limit will remain 25 mph “for greater certainty.”

Meanwhile, Transport Canada is working with the railways on “a more comprehensive set of safety measures, which will include permanent measures,” the government said in a release.

Those measures are to be aimed at track infrastructure maintenance and renewal, winter operations, safety practices and “any other actions necessary to keep Canadians safe.”

The tighter speed limits follow “a number of recent derailments of trains transporting dangerous goods which have resulted in the breach of tank cars and the release of dangerous goods,” Garneau said in Sunday’s order.

The listed examples included a derailment that spilled crude oil near St. Lazare in western Manitoba last February, a derailment and fire near Guernsey, Sask. in December and a second derailment in the same area near Guernsey, about 40 km south of Humboldt, earlier this month.

Affected rail companies have until March 17 to file written requests for a review of Garneau’s order if they so wish. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Garneau re-adjusts train speed limits appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The audio recording, released on Monday by Teamsters Canada, cut to the heart of workers’ demands in the eight-day-old strike, which rippled through the country’s economy from disrupted grain exports to planned layoffs.

While Reuters could not independently verify the recording, its release helped change public perception and acted as a catalyst for a deal reached on Tuesday with Canadian National Railway (CN), Teamsters Canada president François Laporte said.

The recording featured a conductor who wanted approval from government regulator Transport Canada before moving a train after a 10-hour shift.

“We are not refusing duty. You can log that. I have told you on recording that we are unfit for duty. We’re past our 10th hour. We’re up to almost 11 hours,” the conductor says.

The supervisor responds if he does not move the train, he will consider it refusing to do the job and will request an investigation.

“Sir, that’s your call. … If I take this train now and we hit somebody, who is responsible for that now?” the conductor asks.

Teamsters, the union representing 3,200 CN workers, declined to disclose the name of the conductor but said he ultimately did not move the train and was suspended for 14 days without pay.

CN, which said Monday it is aware of the recording, did not offer an immediate comment on Tuesday.

Transport Canada said on Monday it had not received a complaint regarding the recording.

Transport Minister Marc Garneau on Tuesday declined to comment on the recording, but told reporters in Ottawa that efforts are underway by his government to improve fatigue management in the rail sector.

“This is the kind of situation we want to avoid,” Laporte said of the recording. “We have to protect our people.”

The agreement reached with CN, Canada’s largest railroad, will better protect thousands of workers from being reprimanded in cases where they are too tired to safely operate trains, Laporte said in an interview.

“When you repeat that you’re fatigued, you won’t be subject to discipline,” Laporte told Reuters.

The tentative agreement must still be ratified by union members, including conductors and yard workers, with a vote expected in eight weeks, CN said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Allison Lampert in Montreal; additional reporting by Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa.

The post Worker’s plea for rest spurs breakthrough in CN strike, union says appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Calgary-based CP announced late Friday its mainline through Field, B.C. was reopened at midday Wednesday “in close collaboration with Transport Canada, and upon completion of all necessary safety checks.”

Meanwhile, CP said Friday, its crews and contractors “continue to work diligently in challenging conditions to remove the damaged rail cars and equipment” from the crash site.

That work is being done “in concert with Parks Canada” and other agencies, the company said.

The company also said Friday it’s “unable to comment further at this time” given the ongoing investigation by the federal Transportation Safety Board into Monday’s crash.

The crash occurred in the early hours of Feb. 4 after a westbound train of 112 grain hopper cars with three locomotives stopped for a crew change before the entrance to the Upper Spiral Tunnel near Field, about 20 km west of Lake Louise, Alta.

The train’s new crew — who CP identified Monday as conductor Dylan Paradis, engineer Andrew Dockrell and trainee Daniel Waldenberger-Bulmer — had boarded but weren’t yet ready to depart when the train, which had its emergency brakes applied, “began to move on its own,” the TSB said Tuesday.

There were no handbrakes applied on the train, which accelerated to a speed well over the 32 km/h limit for the track’s steep grade and tight curves in the area, the TSB said.

The lead locomotive and some of the cars derailed on a curve prior to a bridge between the Upper and Lower Spiral Tunnels, the TSB said. Only 13 cars and the tail-end locomotive remained on the track after the derailment.

Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Friday the TSB is leading his department’s investigation “for the purpose of determining compliance with both the Canada Labour Code and the Railway Safety Act.”

Transport Canada, he said, has issued a ministerial order “as a precaution until such time that the exact cause of the accident is determined,” requiring all railway companies to use handbrakes “should a train be stopped on a mountain grade after an emergency use of the air brakes.”

The order, he said Friday, goes into effect immediately “and will remain in effect as long as necessary.”

CP, in its statement late Friday, noted it will “fully comply” with Garneau’s order. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post CP mainline through Rockies reopened after crash appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The second-largest U.S. automaker said it was aware of 17 reports of smoke or fire in the United States and six in Canada relating to seat-belt pretensioners, but was not aware of any accidents or injuries as a result. The mechanism of the pretensioner, which works in tandem with air bags, involves an explosive charge that locks a seat belt in place during a crash.

Some pretensioners in front seat belts could generate excessive sparks when deployed, resulting possibly in a fire, the company said.

The recall comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a preliminary investigation in August into 1.6 million Ford trucks after five complaints of fires in the seat belt component, including three vehicles destroyed by fires.

Owners should “take action” when they receive recall notices from Ford disclosing the timing for free repairs, NHTSA said in a statement Thursday.

The automaker “identified this issue through its normal quality processes. We have been co-operating with the agency, as we always do,” Ford spokeswoman Elizabeth Weigandt said on Thursday, referring to NHTSA.

The recall covers 2015-18 Ford F-150 Regular Cab and SuperCrew Cab vehicles in North America for driver and front passenger seat-belt pretensioners.

Ford said the recall included 1.62 million U.S. vehicles, 340,000 in Canada and 37,000 in Mexico.

To resolve the issue, dealers will remove some insulation material and remnants of wiring harness tape from the vehicle’s B pillar area, and apply heat-resistant tape to the carpet and its insulation. They will also modify the back interior panels of Regular Cab vehicles. The B pillar is the vertical support behind a vehicle’s front seat windows.

Transport Canada contacted Ford in November 2017, regarding a B-pillar area fire on a 2015 vehicle. That prompted a joint vehicle inspection by Ford and the agency, but the cause could not be determined.

NHTSA reached out to Ford earlier this year to inquire about the reports relating to the three fires before it opened its formal probe.

Ford said the components in the older 2015-2017 models were built by Takata, which was acquired by Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp., while ZF Friedrichshafen AG built the parts starting with the 2018 model year.

— David Shepardson is a Reuters correspondent covering the U.S. auto and transport sectors from Washington, D.C.

The post Ford recalls two million trucks over seat-belt fire concerns appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.