A federal judge has ruled that data from locomotive event recorders must be publicly disclosed, marking the first time information from the devices will be released since Parliament mandated their use in 2022. Blacklock's Reporter says the decision follows a deadly 2019 derailment in a B.C. mountain pass that claimed the lives of three crew members, including a trainee.Justice Richard Southcott of the Federal Court dismissed a bid by Canadian Pacific Railway to block access under the Access to Information Act, noting the railway had “not established a reasonable expectation” of confidentiality.Investigators found a 15,000-tonne grain train bound for the Port of Vancouver had lost its air brakes near Field, B.C., before hurtling down a mountain pass at 85 kilometres an hour — three times the speed limit — and jackknifing on a sharp curve near the Kicking Horse River. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada determined mechanical failure contributed to the crash and agreed in 2023 to release the recorder data to an anonymous requester.“This application will be dismissed,” Justice Southcott wrote. “The Transportation Safety Board emphasizes railway companies are statutorily obliged to record this information and provide it to the Board when requested.”.The court noted that locomotive event recorders capture all safety-critical controls in real time, including speed, brake performance, bell and headlight operation, and other operational data. Canadian Pacific argued the recordings were highly confidential and limited to access by roughly five senior executives, stored securely on company servers.Parliament exempted locomotive crews from certain privacy protections under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act when it mandated installation of voice, video, and data recorders. Rail unions opposed the move, warning it could erode workplace privacy.“There’s a big difference between installing cameras in public spaces and installing cameras in confined, captive workplaces,” said Don Ashley, national legislative director for the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, during 2018 Senate testimony. “The bill could be the beginning of a slippery slope leading to the disintegration of privacy rights for all Canadians.”The ruling sets a precedent for public access to locomotive data in Canada and could influence future cases involving safety and transparency in the rail sector.
