Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Early in the evening of Friday November 27th 2020 in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, Canadian Pacific (freight) and AMT (commuter trains) traffic was interrupted as a response to the Coast to Coast call to Action* against the continued violent invasion of unceded Indigenous territory by militarized colonial police forces.
A thick (thickness of a pencil) 13ft copper wire was tightly wrapped around (twice per rail just to make sure) and across the rails, completing a circuit that mimics a train passing, thus temporarily blocking off this section of the railroad until a maintenance crew is called, the wire found, the rails inspected, etc. The activation of train signal lights behind and ahead of us on the tracks allowed us to confirm it worked, though nearby crossing barriers didn’t go down to stop car traffic as expected. Our understanding is that maybe given the direction of the next train scheduled to pass, the obstruction created was understood by their system as being a train that had already passed the crossing. It is also unclear whether this works further away from electrical infrastructure where the current on the rails might not be as strong.
More experimentation – and sharing our findings – is certainly needed but we believe this method to be quick and simple enough to be replicated without much expertise or training. Police repression is also quite difficult given the scale of railroad networks in and around cities. Make sure to plan everything as securely as you would any similar action. Prepare and discuss things only with people involved and do so away from phones and other electronics equipped with microphones and geolocation systems. Make sure there is no way to identify you while gathering information (via Tor Browser or a VPN for online browsing), acquiring the tools you need, leaving the area, and finally broadcasting your action if necessary. Keep in mind cameras, fingerprints, DNA, footprints, and contextual risks (e.g. electrical current, police, falling) at all times before, during, and after the action.
As seen time and time again, the only language understood by the Canadian state is the disruption of the circulation of goods, labor, and capital. Last winter, Indigenous land protectors and settler accomplices have shown that the Canadian colonial project is nothing more than a few population hubs linked to extractive areas by vulnerable transport infrastructure. Colonial laws are illegitimate on Indigenous territory and they will always be disregarded in the fight against the genocide of Indigenous people.
