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| During my career, I've reported on several terrible events but the rail disaster in Lac Mégantic, Quebec six years ago is among the worst. |
| After arriving in town then, I parked next to an apple tree far from the site of the train wreck and subsequent blast that killed 47 people. Where its apples faced the disaster zone, they were burned and shriveled. Their opposite sides remained a ripening red. All around, the vinyl siding on houses drooped as if in a surrealist painting. |
Hours after the wreck, fires continued to burn in Lac Mégantic, Quebec.
Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press |
| The burned oil and incinerated ruin of downtown gave off an odor of death. |
| For a relatively new series, Promises Made, The Times is revisiting tragedies, wars, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. Michael Slackman, the International editor, recently explained what we hope to achieve: |
| "The idea is to pause a beat or two amid the onslaught of daily news and look back at stories that once dominated the headlines, then ask a very simple question: |
| Did those in power do what they said they would do to make sure this never happens again?" |
While the railway tracks were swiftly restored, the rebuilding of downtown Lac Mégantic has been slow.
Ian Willms for The New York Times |
| I recently returned to Lac Mégantic for a Promises Made installment. |
| [Read: A Runaway Train Explosion Killed 47, but Deadly Cargo Still Rides the Rails] |
| [Lire en français: Un train explose et fait 47 morts. Six ans plus tard, les wagons qui traversent les villes canadiennes ne sont pas plus rassurants.] |
| The first shock came as I drove toward downtown from the west. It's downhill from the rest of the community — that's why the oiltrain ran away. And when I came around a corner I found myself looking at, well, largely nothing. |
| The wreckage of the death train and the old downtown are long gone. With the exception of town hall, a Bell Canada central telephone exchange and, perhaps bitterly, the train station, the rest of the once vibrant core was also demolished during the decontamination process after the disaster. |
| The railway tracks returned fairly quickly. Train service is vital to the town's big employers, particularly a mill that produces fiber board used in Ikea bookcases. |
| But the remainder of the downtown is mainly a grid of new streets running past largely empty parking lots and fields where grass and weeds are at war. At the time of my return visit, mud was emerging as the winner in those battles. |
| There's been some rebuilding but several residents who graciously shared time with me are less than pleased with it. In a decision that baffled many of them, the grocery store and pharmacy were moved across a river over a new bridge to an adjacent neighborhood. |
A local memorial to victims of the rail disaster.
Ian Willms for The New York Times |
| Several other shops and restaurants are now a few blocks north of the old shopping district in a strip development. While pleasantly designed, the new town lacks the somewhat chaotic charm of the old town. It looks like something you'll find in any suburb anywhere else in Canada. Down by the now decontaminated lakeshore, a few houses have reappeared and a subsidized apartment building has risen. |
| But aside from a bustling ice cream bar, the once busy downtown is lifeless. |
| The other unwelcome surprise was the physical state of what used to be the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. Renamed the Central Maine and Quebec Railway, it is now owned by a subsidiary of SoftBank, the Japanese investment fund with $64 billion in assets. |
| Few of those billions, however, are evident when it comes to the railway. Certainly its locomotives, whose dismal mechanical state was a key part of the chain of events that led to the town's immolation, now appear to be in good order, sporting fresh blue paint. |
| But the tracks remains largely unchanged from the time of the disaster, other than being six years older. When Ian Willms, the photographer who was with me during the disaster and again recently, poked a shabby rail with the toe of his boot, some metal flaked off. Peering down the rails revealed something that looks more like a wriggling snake than an iron road. |
| The decay has brought speed restrictions, limiting trains to a stately pace along many sections before and after the town. |
The hilltop cross that overlooks Lac Mégantic not far from the railway line.
Ian Willms for The New York Times |
| Julie Morin, the town's energetic mayor, told me that until a rail bypass takes the tracks out of town — something that's at least four years away — the rebuilding will be hobbled. |
| She also said the emotional rebuilding of the town was still a work in progress. While many people said they've been given good psychological support, they also acknowledge they are far from healed. |
| The residents I spoke with had another message for the rest of the world: They don't want to be overlooked or forgotten. |
| Downtown Lac Mégantic may be slow in returning, but the town is very much alive. The beauty of the large lake it sits on remains undiminished. One morning before leaving I rode the 56-kilometer cycling route around the lake, passing several busy parks, campgrounds and beaches. It was exceptional. Nearby, Mont Mégantic provincial park is one of Southern Canada's best spots for stargazing. |
| If you want to do something for Lac Mégantic's survivors, go pay them a visit. |
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