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Irving Oil tanker cars causing worries for some Saint John businesses

Irving Oil tanker cars causing worries for some Saint John businesses

Business owners on Rothesay Avenue in Saint John say they are concerned about the tanker cars that sit in their backyard.

Just don't ask them to speak on the record about it.

The cars rumble past daily, many on their way to the Irving Oil refinery. Sometimes, one business owner said, they stay parked for days at a time.

Another employee said he was worried about the condition of the track.

He pointed out missing spikes and what looked like old wood.

He said he can feel every time the trains go by because they shake his entire workplace.

The people CBC spoke with said the tankers rolling through are nothing new, but many referenced the Lac-Mégantic disaster as something they still think about.

The 72 tank cars carrying crude oil that exploded in Lac-Mégantic on July 6, 2013 killed 47 people and were headed to New Brunswick.

People on Rothesay Avenue say they have noticed a big increase in the number of tanker cars in recent years.

According to one rail safety advocate, they're right — and it's a similar situation across Canada.

"It's not their imagination," said Helen Vassilakos, co-founder of Safe Rail Communities. "In 2009, there were only about 500 of these types of shipments in Canada. By 2014, the numbers were 140,000 and the projected numbers by 2016 are 510,000."

Most of the cars are from NB Southern Railways, which is owned by Irving. Many business owners on Rothesay Avenue say they have contracts or connections with the rail lines and benefit from them, so they don't want to be the one to sound an alarm.

But the concern is still there.

'Nothing unusual or concerning'

Irving Oil spokesperson Samantha Robinson said "Irving Oil relies on rail operators for the safe operation of rail cars to and from our refinery on a daily basis; as part of our normal operations, some of these cars would have product while other rail cars would be empty."

Geoff Britt from J.D. Irving Ltd. said "there is nothing unusual or concerning about seeing the same cars in a location for days or weeks at a time."

Irving Oil has already announced a commitment to increasing the safety of tanker cars and shipment of crude oil into New Brunswick. In 2014, it voluntarily banned the use of crude oil rail cars built prior to 2011.

Rail cars meant to carry crude oil built after October 2011 are considered to be safer than earlier models.

But in May 2015, Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt and U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said they still are not safe enough.

Raitt said even newer tank cars are needed and current models will need to be retired or retrofitted to new standards over the next decade.

Her department has estimated the cost of upgrading approximately 35,000 rail cars at more than $543 million.