Lake Megantic Quebec - The brakes failed on the train and at 01:15 it piled into a small town, where its cargo of seven million tons of petroleum crude oil burst into flames.
 
In the footage uploaded onto YouTube a man can be heard crying out, "Oh Mon Dieu (My God)!" as the oil erupts in a huge fireball.
 
That night, in July 2013, 47 people died in the Canadian town of Lake Megantic.
 
Thirty people died at the Musi-Cafe bar, including aspiring singer Genevieve Breton, 28, who was performing there.
 
The disaster also indirectly claimed the life of a 25-year-old fireman, who committed suicide three months after pulling the charred remains of his girlfriend out of the debris.
 
Train driver Tom Harding, railway traffic controller Richard Labrie, and manager of train operations Jean Demaitre, have all been charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death.
 
They will go on trial later this year.
 
The oil train was operated by the Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), which went bankrupt a few months later under the weight of the millions of pounds in damages and compensation it faced as a result of the disaster.
 
An investigation by the Transportation Board of Canada (TSB) found the train, which had been producing smoke from its engine, had been parked seven miles away at Nantes on the night of the disaster.
 
Harding had agreed with his controller that the train would stay there overnight and mechanics would come and check on it in the morning.
 
Mr. Walsh (Harding's lawyer Thomas Walsh) told Daily Star Online, "What happened at Lake Megantic was really a series of unfortunate events which created a perfect storm. Trains have parked up (at the top of that hill) for 75 years and they have never done anything. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but nobody had any divine foresight. There are a number of forms of safeguarding that didn't take place. It's no excuse for the guy who didn't put enough brakes on, but he was using a rule of thumb which he had always used and had always worked. When I park my car on a slope it has always worked out for me. Mr Harding could have done better but the whole thing boils down to foreseeability. Could he foresee the fire brigade being called out and putting out the fire? He knew there was a problem with the engine which he reported. The yardmen called the fire department and they came and extinguished the fire and turned the engine off. That turned off the hydraulic brakes and when they were drained down that left only the handbrake."
 
With the handbrake unable to hold the mile-long train, it rolled down the slope, picking up speed and hitting the town at about 65 miles per hour.
 
Harding, who was sleeping in a hotel, woke up when he heard the explosion but had no idea it was his train that was to blame.
 
He made several calls to his controller.
 
Audio tapes have been released of the moment when the controller told him it was his train that was involved.
 
"Holy f***... she was f***ing secure," he replied.
 
Catherine Pomerleau-Pelletier, an employee at the inn where he slept, recalled, "I looked at him and I didn't say a word or anything because he looked very, very, very shaken up."
 
A few days after the disaster MMA's boss, Edward Burkhardt, visited Lake Megantic and blamed Harding and said, "We think he applied some hand brakes but the question is, did he apply enough of them?"
 
Burkhardt, who was once chief executive of English, Welsh, and Scottish Railways, later fired Harding.
 
Harding's lawyer Thomas Walsh said he feared his client faced a "show trial" later this year with Harding being made a "scapegoat".
 
If convicted all three men could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
 
All three have pleaded not guilty.
 
The TSB's report said MMA had a "weak safety culture" and said it "significantly compromised the company's ability to manage risk".
 
The same report said the oil "was more volatile than described on the shipping documents" and Mr. Walsh speculated this had been done by MMA to "save paying taxes".
 
Mr. Walsh said, "MMA was a profit-making machine and they spared no expense for certain things but every expense for things like safety."
 
Daily Star Online contacted Mr. Burkhardt's company, Rail World Inc., but was told he was "unavailable for comment".
 
Mr. Walsh said, "Thomas Harding is a guy who is the salt-of-the-earth. He comes from a railway town and his father and his uncle both worked on the railways. He has been doing that run for time immemorial. He is not a slacker. But you have got a guy and you wear him down. He has got s****y equipment and s***y conditions and every time anyone threatens to complain they threaten to lay them off. Mr. Harding admits to a degree of negligence. But he was supposed to drive an American train the next morning. They told him you have to get X hours of rest so he went to the hotel. Then they rang him and told him about the fire on the train and he said, should I go down there? and they told him no. What more could he have done? If you listen to the tapes you realise that he has no idea that the fire is caused by his train. The guy tells him that it's his train. It's not a guilty sound. He said he put seven brakes on it."
 
Lake Megantic is still recovering from the disaster.
 
Two out of three residents are believed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
 
Thirty buildings in the town centre were destroyed and another 39 had to be demolished because of oil contamination.
 
Trains carrying crude oil through the town have been suspended since the night of the accident.
 
Transport Minister Marc Garneau told residents last month railway bosses had decided "out of respect for the citizens of Lake Megantic" to suspend crude oil by train until next year.
 
Last year a compensation deal was agreed, which would see $446 million distributed among the families of the 47 victims of the disaster, as well as the family of the firefighter.
 
Mr. Walsh said, "I am not asking for a change of venue. I am insisting it takes places in Lake Megantic because they have lived through this. They deserve to be the people who get to decide on the guilt or innocence of the various people partly responsible for this tragedy. They have the best moral claim to be the jury. It's their family and friends who were lost. These people's lives are marred forever. There is a pall over the whole town," he added.
 
Chris Summers.