Lake Megantic Quebec - Montreal Maine & Atlantic's (MMA) own employees feared a catastrophe, given the state of the now-bankrupt railway's tracks and equipment, and the kind of products the company was transporting, according to court documents made public Friday.
 
Several MMA employees interviewed by the Surete du Quebec after the Lake Megantic train derailment described rundown equipment, damaged tracks, and minimal maintenance.
 
They also said they considered the company's one-person crew policy, which had been approved by Transport Canada, to be dangerous.
 
Richard Labrie, MMA's rail-traffic controller, told the SQ that, internally, employees feared a catastrophe.
 
The employees' statements are contained in a search-warrant request the SQ filed last July to search MMA's offices.
 
None of the allegations contained in the warrant request have been proven.
 
MMA regularly transported crude oil from the Bakken fields of North Dakota from Montreal to an Irving refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick.
 
The warrant said MMA employees told SQ investigators the company was using second-hand locomotives that sometimes turned off while the train was moving.
 
Locomotives were poorly maintained, and locomotives sent to the United States for repairs returned in the same condition.
 
One employee said he had seen flames coming from a locomotive chimney when it was ascending a hill and the engine was working hard.
 
When track conditions deteriorated, the company lowered the speed limit instead of repairing the tracks, the warrant said.
 
In areas where the speed limit had been 40 miles per hour, trains were only allowed to travel at 10 or 25 mph, one employee said.
 
The employees told police the company did the minimum repairs required.
 
Railway-maintenance employee Simon Tetreault told the SQ that despite the poor condition of its tracks, they still passed Transport Canada inspections, the warrant said.
 
Conductor Jonathan Couture was one of two employees who picked up the oil train that later derailed in Lake Megantic from Montreal and took it to Farnham.
 
He said he saw little maintenance done on locomotives, and said locomotive 5017, the one in which the fire broke out in Nantes on 5 Jul 2013, was in particularly poor condition.
 
Couture said he had seen a fire in its chimney about a month and a half before the derailment, the warrant said.
 
Tetrault also told police a lack of investment by MMA had led to deteriorating conditions in the area where he worked.
 
He said the Friday before the accident, he had advised his bosses that certain tracks were dangerous, but repairs had not been authorized.
 
The company's one-person crew policy was dangerous, conductor Francois Tetreault told the SQ.
 
If a driver became ill, no one would be able to take over and operate the train, he said.
 
Tetreault said he believed MMA had instituted the policy to save on salary costs, the warrant said.
 
The number of employees dedicated to maintenance had dropped from 12 to three, Yves Gendreau, MMA's railway-equipment inspection manager, told investigators.
 
He said the company didn't have enough materials to properly maintain the network.
 
The warrant notes that during their meeting with the SQ, an MMA employee contacted the company and was told not to answer questions from the police.

Monique Beaudin.