OTTAWA — The Safety Order issued Thursday by Transport Canada appears to require VIA Rail Canada to continue to use unoccupied end-of-train buffer cars through 2023, and recommends “operational measures and additional analysis” until VIA undertakes “a structural reinforcement and repair program” of its entire heritage fleet of stainless steel, head-end-power rolling stock.
The order from the office of Transport Minister Omar Alghabra reiterates that “the HEP cars can continue to withstand normal operating loads in regular service,” [see “VIA: Need for ‘in-depth’ inspections led to buffer-car decision,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 19, 2022]. It requires VIA to:
— Conduct an engineering simulation of predicted HEP car collision performance and issue a report by Oct. 31, 2022.
— Conduct a tear-down inspection of four HEP cars with structural defects and a compression test of two unrepaired HEP cars, with reports issued by Jan. 31, 2023.
— Prepare final reports of the simulation and inspections by March 31, 2023.
Once a mitigation strategy is devised, the order mandates that one “fully-repaired HEP car” undergo a static structural compression test “to validate the repair methodology and provide … an assessment of how test outcomes will inform future repairs and mitigating measures by Dec. 31, 2023.”
The safety order thus presumes there are widespread issues with the integrity of the vintage cars, most built by Budd in the mid-1950s, but does not reveal the exact nature of any defects that have been discovered.
“The center sill is something that has to be inspected every year,” now-retired Avalon Railcar president June Stolp Garland tells News Wire. Her company structurally modified 12 ex-Canadian Pacific cars — eight Chateau sleepers and four Park dome-lounge-observations — for VIA’s Prestige class service in 2012. “We did the metallurgy testing we had to do throughout every car before undertaking such a large rebuild. If there were any problems with the center sill, we would have been done, but I believe that old equipment is fabulous, and we’re really proud of the product we put out.”
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