Excerpt from Canadian counter-insurgency publication

“A burning car on a railway track is not simply a blockade, it is also a very efficient and economical weapon. A car with a full fuel tank would burn at a temperature high enough to warp the track and require extensive repairs. An attack on isolated tracks in sparely settled countryside, for example, north of Lake Superior or west of Thunder Bay to the Manitoba border, would require the deployment by rail of special repair equipment. Once deployed, other attacks on the same line might trap that equipment in the wilderness. There is little doubt that one or two effective attacks, especially ones that derailed trains, would close CP and CN traffic simply because sensible train crews would refuse to travel on insecure railways surrounded by hostile forces.”