Speculation is growing over what the long-term economic impacts will be to the bankruptcy of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. Experts interviewed by the Bangor Daily News, however, say businesses served by the railroad shouldn’t experience any immediate impacts as a result of the company’s bankruptcy. The railway filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday, […]
Canada
Canadian police probe possibility that python killed boys
TORONTO — A 100-pound python blamed in the strangling deaths of two Canadian boys apparently escaped from its enclosure, slithered through a ventilation system and fell through the ceiling into the room where the young brothers were sleeping, authorities said Tuesday. A snake expert said it was possible that the python was spooked and simply […]
Canadian police say snake strangled sleeping boys
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick — A python escaped from its enclosure at a pet store in Canada, slithered through a ventilation system into an upstairs apartment and killed two young boys as they slept, police said Monday. The brothers, aged five and seven, were visiting the apartment of a friend above Reptile Ocean Inc., an exotic […]
Quebec tragedy brings hardship to Maine rail town
BROWNVILLE (AP) — A central Maine town that’s a hub for a railroad whose runaway oil train derailment killed 47 people in a small Quebec town is feeling the fallout from the accident. Brownville’s normally a noisy place with workers shifting railroad cars around a network of tracks in town. But the accident that brought […]
Protesters rally against tar sands at Sebago Lake State Park
In the wake of the July 6 explosion of a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota through Maine to Lac-Megantic, Quebec, opponents of so-called tar sands crude oil gathered Saturday at Sebago Lake State Park to protest transportation of the bituminous oil across Maine and call attention to the threat to the lake from […]
Insufficient brake force blamed in derailment
NEW YORK (AP) — A fiery and fatal train derailment earlier this month in Quebec, near the Maine border, highlighted the danger of moving oil by rail, a practice that has grown exponentially as a result of the oil boom and will continue to expand, experts say. This year, more trains carrying crude will chug […]
Railway involved in Quebec explosion lays off 79 of 179 workers
HERMON — The railway that owns the runaway train that devastated a small Quebec town almost two weeks ago, killing 50 people, has laid off 79 of its 179 workers because of the disaster, a company official said Wednesday. Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway workers learned at the close of business on Monday that they […]
Collins says border crossing fee not going anywhere
PORTLAND — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins says the possibility of charging border crossing fees on people entering the U.S. by land from Canada or Mexico is all but dead. The Maine senator says the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee has approved the department’s fiscal year 2014 funding bill with language that expressly prohibits funding any […]
Quebec explosion prompts Michaud, Pingree to call for review of rail infrastructure
WASHINGTON — A week after an oil-tanker train exploded in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, leaving as many as 60 people presumed dead or missing, Maine U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud on Thursday called for a federal investigation into the safety of the infrastructure used to transport crude oil and gas by […]
Railway executive says fiery accident would not have happened in Maine
AUGUSTA — The fiery accident that occurred in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, would not have happened in Maine because there would have been no layover where the train could be left unattended, the chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway said Monday. The train had been hauling crude oil from North Dakota to Irving Oil Ltd.’s […]