25 August 2006
Thomas Couldn't Fix Derailment
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These two mega-tonne CPR engines jumped the track
while crossing the Speed River at Riverside Park on Monday at noon.
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Cambridge Ontario - Don't worry kids, it wasn't Thomas the
engine that jumped the track and teetered above the Speed River in Cambridge this week.
It was a couple of big red Canadian Pacific locomotives. The incident occurred at about 12:30 p.m. on Monday when two CP engines - 4656
and 4657 - came down the long incline from the marshalling yard on Fountain Street North (known as the Breslau Road).
Engineer Gary Cook was at the controls and he tooted his whistle as he approached the small railway bridge over Sulphur Creek. The
little toot-toot sounded like the famous television engine Thomas.
A louder and longer whistle sharply cut the air as Cook came closer to the entrance to Riverside Park.
Cars, SUVs and a couple of pickup trucks coming out of the park all halted a few feet back from the tracks. Cook and his big red engines
had the right-of-way and it is pretty foolish to argue with the hundreds of tons of rolling stock bearing down on a level
railway crossing.
The giant looking red engines crossed the park entrance off King Street and proceeded across the millrace bridge, where the
fast-flowing water is heading for Dover Flour Mill just a short distance away.
Cook's engines were pulling eight railway cars of scrap steel that had been loaded up in Kitchener. Making up the rest of the train were
16 car carriers. These oversized freight cars were each carrying 15 brand new Toyota automobiles. This train, somewhat shorter than
usual, had a total of 240 vehicles made at Cambridge's Toyota Manufacturing plant. Sometimes the trains carry twice this number of cars.
Last year, the railway carried over 300,000 Toyotas from the Cambridge plant to points all over the U.S. and Canada.
The lead engine - No. 4656 - was about halfway across the main railway bridge over the Speed River when a rear wheel on the left side
jumped the rail. Engine No. 4657 followed suit by having its front left wheel go off the track. The engineer was proceeding at a very
slow pace and stopped the train within the length of the two engines.
The train sat there crippled for about six hours blocking the entrance to the park. Finally, another set of engines from the marshalling
yard above Kress Hill was able to retrieve the railcars after uncoupling them from the two stranded engines on the bridge. The cars were
taken back to the marshalling yards.
Work now got underway to use wedges to get the engines' wheels back on the rails. After a lengthy struggle, numbers 4656 and 4657 were
back on the rails and running again. However, the engines couldn't return across the bridge because when they had jumped the track the
rails had been pushed further apart. It required a maintenance crew to work late into the night before the rails on the bridge were safe
to traverse again.
Cook, a Thornhill resident who is a descendent of one of the Jardines from the former Jardine Foundry in Cambridge, didn't require the
services of that famous TV engine, Thomas. As that master writer Shakespeare once penned, "All's well that ends
well".
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