Rail Firm Poorly Audited Before Canada Disaster: Report

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The U.S. Department of Transportation last month proposed new safety rules for hauling crude oil by rail. These included taking the older DOT-111s out of circulation within a maximum of five years.

TSB Chair Tadros said increased physical defenses are needed to stop runaway trains because not all operators will follow safety rules.

"Railways are high risk industries. We may not have thought of them like that before, but certainly (Lac-Mégantic) has taught us that," she told Reuters.

The official opposition New Democrats blamed Ottawa in part for the disaster, saying it should not have granted an exemption to MMA allowing it to operate with just one engineer.

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