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Thursday 11 July 2013
Meet Maine, Montreal and Atlantic Railways (MM&A)
Edward A. Burkhardt is President of Rail World, Inc., of Chicago, Illinois, a railroad management and consulting company he formed in 1999. He also serves as President of Rail World Holdings LLC, which holds railway investments worldwide.
Rail World Inc. is a A railway management, consulting and investment corporation specializing in privatizations and restructurings. Its purpose is to promote rail industry privatization by bringing together government bodies wishing to sell their stakes with investment capital and management skills.
Mr. Burkhardt serves as Chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, a 750 mile regional railway operating in Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick. He is President of The San Luis Central Railroad Company, a short line railway based in Monte Vista, Colorado, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway, a regional carrier serving the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Prior to his creation of Rail World, Mr. Burkhardt was the founder and for 12 years the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation, which was the largest of the regional railroads spun off from Class I’s in recent years. Mr. Burkhardt also served as President of Algoma Central Railway, Inc., a Canadian subsidiary of WCTC.
Before Wisconsin Central, Mr. Burkhardt’s railroad career spanned 20 years with the Chicago and North Western Transportation Co., where he was Vice President Marketing and Vice President Operations.
He is Past President of the Western Railway Club. Mr. Burkhardt also served on the Executive Committee of the Regional Railroads of America.
In 1999 he was named “Railroader of the Year” by Railway Age magazine, and subsequently in December 1999 Railway Age named him one of 16 “Railroaders of the Century.”
New Zealand
While with Wisconsin Central, Mr. Burkhardt led the privatisation and subsequently served as Chairman of Tranz Rail Holdings Ltd., the rail and ferry system of New Zealand, from its start-up in September 1993 thru August 1999
United Kingdom
Also while with Wisconsin Central, Mr. Burkhardt served as Chairman and Chief Executive of English Welsh & Scottish Railway Ltd. during the period from its start-up in December 1995 through July 1999. He led the investor group that purchased five railway operations from the British Railway Board, which handled 93% of rail freight in the United Kingdom.
Australia
Mr. Burkhardt was also Chairman of Australian Transport Network from 1997 through August 1999, which purchased Tasrail, a freight carrier operating in the island State of Tasmania, Australia. Subsequently, Tasrail purchased the Emu Bay Railway from the mining company Pasminco and merged the two rail operations. ATN also was an investment of Wisconsin Central.
Estonia
Mr. Burkhardt was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Navirail OÜ, based in Tallinn, which operated a freight ferry between Helsinki and Tallinn. He serves as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of AS Baltic Rail, also based in Tallinn, which is developing the Finland - Baltic States – Poland rail corridor involving automatic change of track gauge at the Lithuania / Poland border. He led the Estonian Railways privatization in 2001 and served as Chairman of its Supervisory Board until it was repurchased by the Estonian government in early 2007.
Poland
He is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Rail Polska, based in Warsaw. Rail Polska completed two short-line railway acquisitions in early 2003: Kolex (based in Oświecim) and ZecTrans (based in Wrocław). Rail Polska has been granted unrestricted operator license on the Polish rail network, and commenced long-haul train operations, primarily handling power-station coal, in October 2003. Rail Polska is currently expanding rapidly in the deregulated European rail marketplace.
Education
Mr. Burkhardt holds a B.S. degree with honors in Industrial Administration from Yale University and studied Rail Transportation at Yale’s Graduate School.
Corporate Directorships
Mr. Burkhardt recently completed six years service on the boards of directors of PolyMedica Corporation, listed on the NASDAQ, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, an NYSE-listed company.
Mr. Burkhardt was appointed Honorary Consul for New Zealand at Chicago in January 1995. His diplomatic jurisdiction now includes the U.S. Great Lakes Region: Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Mr. Burkhardt is a former Chairman of the Finance Committee of the United States-New Zealand Council.
Macquarie Corporate Finance (USA) provided investment banking services to MMA, and arranged the investment consortium which includes: LaSalle Bank, Bank Austria and Earlston Associates L.P. as senior debt holders, and Caisse de depot et Placement du Quebec (“CDP”), Rail World Holdings, Eureka Growth Capital, MP Structured Finance Fund, Berkshire Investments (Netherlands), CAC LLC, DRD Family Partnership, Athena Family Partners, Vineyard Partners, Lee Grandchildren Trust, MP Global Enterprizes, andan affiliate of The Wheeling Corporation as mezzanine debt and equity investors.
Also investing with Rail World are several private investors including Larry R. Parsons, Chairman and CEO of Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad, a regional railroad located in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Jerry R. Davis, retired President of Union Pacific Railroad, and Frank Turner, retired President of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association and a veteran rail manager.
Rail World Inc. is a A railway management, consulting and investment corporation specializing in privatizations and restructurings. Its purpose is to promote rail industry privatization by bringing together government bodies wishing to sell their stakes with investment capital and management skills.
Also investing with Rail World are several private investors including Larry R. Parsons, Chairman and CEO of Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad, a regional railroad located in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Jerry R. Davis, retired President of Union Pacific Railroad, and Frank Turner, retired President of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association and a veteran rail manager.
Rail World Inc. is a A railway management, consulting and investment corporation specializing in privatizations and restructurings. Its purpose is to promote rail industry privatization by bringing together government bodies wishing to sell their stakes with investment capital and management skills.
MM&A explanation doesn't make sense to rail experts
The locomotive caught fire, so firefighters shut off the engine to stop the flames from spreading. That slowly disengaged the air brakes, and the driverless train carrying 72 cars of crude oil rolled downhill into the scenic lakeside town of Lac-Megantic, derailing, exploding and leveling the town center.
Fire chief Patrick Lambert, head of the 20-person Nantes fire department, said one of his crew members responded to a report of a fire on a train locomotive at 11:32 p.m. Friday. When the crew arrived at the scene 10 minutes later, the 12 firefighters put out the blaze, which originated in a fuel or oil line.
No employees from the train company were at the scene when the fire crew arrived.
“They told me it’s normal during a shift change,” Lambert said, adding that by the time his men were done putting out the fire at 12:13 a.m., two MMA employees had arrived.
Lambert said his men had done some joint training with the MMA in how to fight locomotive fires, including how to safely shut down a locomotive, which one of his men did on Friday night, but that training had nothing to do with the air brake system.
“We don’t touch the brakes,” he said. “We’re not specialists on trains, we’re not mechanics. Our specialty is putting out fires.”
MMA chairman Edward Burkhardt has blamed firefighters in Nantes for the disaster, saying they unwittingly unlocked the train's brakes when they shut down the locomotive's engines to douse a small fire.
Fire chief Patrick Lambert, head of the 20-person Nantes fire department, said one of his crew members responded to a report of a fire on a train locomotive at 11:32 p.m. Friday. When the crew arrived at the scene 10 minutes later, the 12 firefighters put out the blaze, which originated in a fuel or oil line.
No employees from the train company were at the scene when the fire crew arrived.
“They told me it’s normal during a shift change,” Lambert said, adding that by the time his men were done putting out the fire at 12:13 a.m., two MMA employees had arrived.
Lambert said his men had done some joint training with the MMA in how to fight locomotive fires, including how to safely shut down a locomotive, which one of his men did on Friday night, but that training had nothing to do with the air brake system.
“We don’t touch the brakes,” he said. “We’re not specialists on trains, we’re not mechanics. Our specialty is putting out fires.”
MMA chairman Edward Burkhardt has blamed firefighters in Nantes for the disaster, saying they unwittingly unlocked the train's brakes when they shut down the locomotive's engines to douse a small fire.
According to several rail switchmen and engineers Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway explanation involving the air brakes simply doesn’t make sense.
A train’s air brakes rely on a system of pressure valves and storage tanks to function, but they should never be used to maintain a train at rest over an extended period of time. According to retired engineer Paul-André Larose, when the engines are shut off, air gradually begins to leak out of the system, like a balloon with a tiny puncture, and eventually the breaks disengage.
“The air brake system is a beautiful concept, but you have to know its limitations,” said Larose, who lives in Toronto.
That’s where the manually engaged “hand brakes” come in. Even if the air brakes on the MMA train had stopped working, explained veteran rail worker Don Beyer, a backup series of hand brakes should have been engaged, and they should have been enough to keep the train stationary.
“You set (hand brakes) to prevent the train from rolling,” said Beyer, who has more than 30 years of experience and works as a switchman in a busy rail yard in Missouri. Each MMA locomotive and tank car was equipped with a hand brake.
Ghost train.: Photo taken on Friday at 23:30 between the town of Nantes and lac Mégantic credit Nancy Cameron
Transport Canada’s rules governing train travel specifically outline this procedure, which Beyer referred to as a “securement test.” Section 112 of the Canadian Railway Operating Rules stipulates that “when equipment is left at any point, a sufficient number of hand brakes must be applied to prevent it from moving.
Joe McGonigle, Maine-based vice president at Montreal Maine & Atlantic, said the train had been stopped outside of town for a crew change, and that there was no crew on the train at the time that it somehow started to roll again. The train's engineer had inspected the train at just before midnight and all was secure. However, sometime after that, the train started to move, eventually traveling 6.8 miles, and part of it derailed and several cars exploded, he said.
"The train was released, we don't know how," he said. All safety measures were in place, and the train was "secure," he said.
In a recent interview Rob Smith, National Legislative Director with Teamsters Canada Rail Conference said,
“The corporate world has thrown away all the expertise we had on the railway. And now we wonder why we’re having accidents, until there’s an accident, they don’t really think about these things.”
Rail World Inc. is a A railway management, consulting and investment corporation specializing in privatizations and restructurings. Its purpose is to promote rail industry privatization by bringing together government bodies wishing to sell their stakes with investment capital and management skills.
RAIL WORLD Inc. Ooops My Bad Disaster Capitalism
While the railway industry says it’s too soon to draw conclusions about the adequacy of safety regulations for the transportation of dangerous goods in the wake of the train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, federal lobbying records show that railway industry representatives recently began a campaign to convince Canadian government officials in private meetings that more stringent safety regulations aren’t necessary.
The Railway Association of Canada, which represents about 50 freight and passenger companies in the country, and the Canadian Pacific Railway have lobbied in the past year against additional regulation on freight rail in separate meetings with federal officials, including with a policy adviser to Transport Minister Denis Lebel, the lobbying disclosure records of the company and the industry association show.
The railway association and the CPR are registered as federal government lobbyists to discuss a host of policy and regulatory matters with government officials. Representatives of the railway association had 21 meetings with about 30 civil servants and members of Parliament in the past year, the group’s lobbying record shows.
The railway association’s record shows a new topic was added to its lobbying activities at the beginning of 2013: “To inform about the movement of dangerous goods, including voluntary and regulatory requirements, volumes, customers and safety measures to assure them that current regulations for dangerous goods transportation are sufficient.”
Other topics included various tax laws, activities to mark the Sir John A. Macdonald bicentennial program in 2015, the association’s call for the installation of voice and video recorders in locomotive cabs and a discussion of Bill C-52, new federal legislation requiring railway companies to enter into contracts with shippers when requested.
The association had two meetings in February, one with MPs and the other with civil servants from Natural Resources Canada. The third meeting, on May 21, was with Aaron Hynes, a policy adviser to Lebel on surface transportation.
For its part, the CPR reveals in its lobbying record that it met with Hynes and another policy adviser, Nathan Cato, on April 17. Among the topics listed for the meeting: “Participating in the review of Rail Service in Canada by Transport Canada with regard to ... Transport Canada’s review of freight rail service in Canada. Advocating for no additional regulation.” The CPR disclosed the same topic of discussion at 22 meetings with more than 30 bureaucrats and MPs over the past year, the company’s lobbying record shows.
Rail World Inc. is a A railway management, consulting and investment corporation specializing in privatizations and restructurings. Its purpose is to promote rail industry privatization by bringing together government bodies wishing to sell their stakes with investment capital and management skills.
Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway ACCIDENTS/INCIDENTS summary
Don't shoot the messengers!
C101
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