Lucas Oleniuk/Getty Images
The ties that bind: A special report two years after the Lac-Mégantic tragedy
Jesse Feith, Montreal Gazette July 3, 2015Two years after the train derailment that killed 47 people, Lac-Mégantic’s relationship with the railroad it was built around is complicated.
The town’s fate has always been intertwined with that
of the railroad. Lac-Mégantic was founded after the tracks were
put down in the late 1880s, and has relied on the rails for survival
ever since.
Families moved ever closer to the railroad, and grew
to trust it. Even as town officials lodged complaints about the
decaying tracks over the last 20 years, that trust remained.
The importance of the tracks to this Eastern
Townships municipality is such that they were repaired before many of
the buildings that were destroyed when the crude-carrying tank cars
exploded in the heart of town.
Despite the destruction now associated with the railroad, when
the first train came through town five months after the disaster, many
people saw it as the beginning of Lac-Mégantic’s rebirth.
Residents knew they had to set aside their fear and
anger if the town was to survive economically. One out of six jobs in
town still has ties to the railroad.
“We had no choice,
really,” town councillor Richard Michaud says. “Hundreds of jobs depend
on (the railroad) here, and we couldn’t risk losing them.”
But the trust is gone.
........Montreal Gazette reporter Jesse Feith and
photojournalist John Kenney visited towns along the route linking the
Bakken oil formation and Lac-Mégantic to explore the relationships
between people and their railroads. Here are the stories they’ve brought
back..... more here
This is an interesting perspective to approach the anniversary of 47 deaths and the complete destruction of this little town called Lac Megantic, Quebec, Canada. Will it ever be the same? NO. Did the railways learn a lesson and decide they were operating under greed and dishonesty? NO. To say that the people of Lac Megantic must learn, again to TRUST the Railroads! Please--spare me. At this point in time, with Bakken Shale Blasting Crude Oil by Rail literally taking over our rail systems, and our communities--how could anyone in their right mind put trust and railway in the same sentence. I'm sorry--now mistrust would be a better fit.
ReplyDelete