Sherbrooke Quebec - Former Montreal Maine & Atlantic (MMA) locomotive engineer Tom Harding voiced repeated concerns about the locomotive he was driving toward Lake Megantic the day before the July 2013 rail tragedy.
 
Superior Court Justice Gaetan Dumas and jurors heard audio recordings of conversations between Harding and the MMA railway traffic controller (RTC) Tuesday.
 
"With five locomotives, I should be doing 22 or 23 mph," Harding can be heard telling the RTC, after reporting that he was only moving at 12 mph.
 
Harding also contacted the RTC once he arrived in Nantes, 12 kilometres northwest of Lake Megantic, and told him he turned four of the five locomotives off and applied the handbrakes.
 
"But I have to tell you, I worked it pretty damn hard," he told the RTC.
 
"I've been here ten minutes maybe, it's smoking excessively now, going back and forth, black smoke, and changes to white sometimes," he said.
 
The American rail traffic controller, who identified himself as Dave, responded, "That's all we can do, Tom. We'll check it in the morning, diagnose it."
 
Fire on the Locomotive
 
About an hour after Harding arrived in Nantes on the night of 5 Jul 2013 a fire broke out on the lead locomotive.
 
The jury heard another audio recording of RTC Richard Labrie, based in Farnham, Quebec, receive a call from a 911 dispatcher, informing him of the blaze.
 
"Are you serious?" Labrie replied, sounding incredulous.
 
"That's a fuel train," he said, with concern in his voice.
 
He later got confirmation the fire was only on the locomotive and firefighters had put it out.
 
Harding Told Not to Worry to Go to Bed
 
Labrie was then heard calling Harding at his hotel, informing him of the fire.
 
"Is there someone there to take care of it?" asked Harding.
 
Labrie told him the firefighters had put out the fire, and an MMA track maintenance foreman, Jean-Noel Busque, then checked on the train.
 
"Do I need to go up there?" asked Harding.
 
"Call me back," he told Labrie.
 
"No, no, no," replied Labrie.
 
"Go to bed."
 
The jury then heard a recording of a 911 dispatcher, Gilles Bertrand, calling Labrie.
 
"You'll be reassured," Bertrand told Labrie.
 
"The train won't bother anyone, at least not tonight," he said.
 
"I'm glad the fire wasn't a little further back," Labrie responded.
 
"There is 10,000 tonnes of crude oil in the back of that."
 
Bertrand ended the call saying, "on our end everything is OK, the intervention is finished."
 
Everything is Excellent
 
Earlier Tuesday, the ex-MMA foreman, Busque, testified he'd been sent to check on the train in Nantes after firefighters extinguished the initial blaze on the locomotive.
 
Busque told the Sherbrooke court it was inconceivable to him that the train could move on its own.
 
He said he called the Farnham RTC on duty, Labrie, and told him the fire was out, telling him, "Everything is excellent."
 
Busque told the court he didn't check the train's handbrakes, although he acknowledged having had some training about how they worked.
 
As a track foreman, he said, it wasn't part of his job.
 
Harding Risked His Life
 
Busque ended his testimony Tuesday by saying the firefighters he spoke with after the disaster recounted to him how Harding had donned firefighter gear and started unhooking undamaged tanker cars from those which were burning after the derailment in downtown Lake Megantic, to stop them from exploding.
 
"They said he risked his life," said Busque.
 
The jury will hear the remainder of the audio recordings Wednesday.
 
Alison Brunette.