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I know this is just speculation and that the actual facts will probably come out in the investigation.  Some say it is wrong to speculate.  But in the meantime, a mighty burden has been placed on engineer, Tom Harding by the unproven accusation by MM&A President Burkhardt, that Mr. Harding’s negligence is the sole cause of this massive disaster.  And while that too is just speculation, it matters because the burden that it places on Mr. Harding is real.  If it turns out that Mr. Harding is blameless, it will have been a great injustice to have accused him in a reckless and self-serving rush to judgment without any proof.  I hope that anyone who believes that speculation is wrong will look at the speculation by Mr. Burkhardt.  So I would like to offer a few thoughts as to reasons why the guilt of Mr. Harding may not be a forgone conclusion as Mr. Burkhardt contends.  Ed Burkhardt has expressed concern that the one running locomotive was shut down and that caused the air brakes to release.  This is insightful because there should be no such concern.  A running locomotive can shut down on its own at any time for any of a number of different reasons.  Therefore, a running locomotive cannot be relied on the hold a train by its air brakes, and there is no safety rule that is predicated on a running locomotive to secure a train by keeping air brakes applied.  Yet, Burkhardt’s concern clearly shows that he believes that a running locomotive was essential to keeping the train from rolling away.  He even reaffirms that belief by saying that he thinks that a second locomotive should be kept running as a backup in case one happens to shut down.  This is completely wrong headed thinking on his part.  And since it is coming from the top guy, it suggests to me that MM&A train securement rules might actually be based on this erroneous thinking.  Mr. Burkhardt’s concern over keeping the air pumped up might be an indication that it is MM&A practice that the air brakes and handbrakes are intended to work together to do the job of train securement.  However, this premise is absolutely incorrect and unacceptable as a train securement policy.  Train securement must not depend on the air brakes. We don’t know what the MM&A rules are that govern train securement at Nantes.  The individual railroad companies develop their own special instructions for how to comply with train securement rule 112 in Canada; and they are not required to make this information public, so they choose not to.  It is easy to assume that the rules are in place, and if one follows the rules, the train won’t roll.  But how do we know that the rules are correct?  Ed Burkhardt’s regret about the locomotive being shut down is strong evidence that the MM&A securement rules are faulty.  When Ed Burkhardt was asked what the MM&A rules were for train securement at Nantes, he said he did not know.  Maybe that is understandable, but what he did know and say is that 11 handbrakes were required.  And yet, experts here have all agreed that there can be no prescribed number because the number has to be determined by the empirical push-pull test.  So why would Burkhardt conclude that the engineer was at fault for the runaway because he failed to set 11 handbrakes? <div> Tom Harding, the engineer of the doomed oil train, has not spoken publicly at all since the runaway.  Meanwhile, Ed Burkhardt has publically stated that he believes the engineer is guilty of causing the Lac-Megantic disaster because he failed to set sufficient handbrakes.  But, what we don’t know is the MM&A rules that stipulated exactly what Mr. Harding’s duty was in securing that train with handbrakes. Considering Burkhardt’s comments about needing to make sure air brakes remain set to secure trains, and his apparent lack of knowledge about the MM&A train securement rules, I think there is a fair chance that the engineer did follow the rules, but the rules were flawed. </div>
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