Questioning oil trains in Whitefish

Could an oil train in front of Whitefish Depot explode like the one last week in Lac-Megantic Quebec?

The city in Quebec has 6,000 inhabitants on the shore of a pristine lake. Fifty people are dead or missing, the town’s main street business district is destroyed, and 73 tank cars of oil in flames flowed downhill into the lake.

It was a town very much like Whitefish. Could a train here in Whitefish explode?

The answer is YES. We hope not, but it could happen. Could an oil train spill oil into Whitefish Lake? Again - YES. It has happened before, but never on this scale.

How many of these mile-long oil trains pass through Whitefish each day? Nobody seems to want to talk about that. Recently, whenever I drive over the viaduct, there are two trains parked in front of the Depot changing crews.

So how many trains a day? Is it 40 per day? Do the math — there are a lot of oil trains coming through. It would only take one accident — one mistake.

Who is in charge of safety? The federal government, Montana, Flathead County, Whitefish? Or is it the railroad itself?

In Quebec it was only the railroad itself and their head guy put the blame on the engineer. It could have been one guy that made a simple mistake that is totally responsible for all of that.

There are a lot of questions that we ought to be asking and talking about right now.

— Peter and Cheri Aronsson