25 April 2007
Trainman Doomed in Runaway
Two CP Rail engines lie on their sides, top, at a sharp turn in
the line at Trail B.C. Miraculously, eight fertilizer cars, bottom, derailed before crossing the trestle in a deadly runaway described
by eye witnesses as looking much like an action movie.
Trail British Columbia - Searchers pulled the body of a CP
Rail engineer from the mangled wreckage of a train Tuesday evening after it lost control on the steepest railway grade in North America
near Trail, B.C.
For more than 24 hours Canadian Pacific and its employees had held out hope the employee, who rode the runaway train down the slope,
had managed to escape injury.
The 11-car train went out of control and broke in two Monday afternoon.
Two others, a conductor and a trainman, jumped to safety, and suffered only minor injuries.
Authorities from Transport Canada, the Transportation Safety Board and Canadian Pacific are trying to determine what caused the short
switching train to lose control as it travelled down the famous 4.1 percent grade that winds five kilometres downhill from Warfield,
just southwest of Trail.
At some point along the line, the engines lost control. Some of the cars went off the tracks just before Highway 22. However, the two
engines and at least one car raced over the highway trestle overpass and derailed at a sharp turn.
The spectacular accident occurred in front of many witnesses, who said they heard tremendous screeching and saw smoke billowing from
the engines as the train barrelled down the hill.
Rob Ferguson had just finished his shift and was driving along a plant road when the two diesels and remaining fertilizer car derailed
about 15 metres away.
"It was surreal, like an action movie developing all around you," he said.
"There were things flying all around me."
The maintenance worker got out of his vehicle and ran to check the cabs of the two engines now lying on their sides, but he couldn't
locate any of the crewmembers.
"I couldn't see the trestle for the smoke from the brakes," said Mike Duckworth, who is used to seeing the trains go slowly
over a trestle near his small car repair shop.
"But this time I'd never seen it go that fast. It was going at least 50 miles an hour. In a matter of seconds it was gone."
Duckworth said when he raced up the steep embankment to the tracks "all I could see was a cloud of dust and the wreckage in the
distance."
Kelly Hutchison, a foreman at a local cement plant, watched as the train blew by him.
"At that point, he was going three times faster than I'd ever seen a train go on this line," he said. "I didn't think
he'd make the corner around to the trestle. I'd heard his whistle blow and I could hear the brakes screeching. It was a runaway for
sure."
The incident occurred around 3 p.m. Monday as the two yard engines were slowly making their way down the steep and winding private rail
spur line, which is owned by Teck-Cominco. They were pulling seven cars of fertilizer and two empty ammonia tank cars. The
train was coming from Teck's fertilizer plant and was to be marshalled into a larger train in Trail.
CP spokesman Mark Seland said the accident is under investigation and the railway company wants to examine the so-called
"black box" event recorders that each locomotive carries.
He said the devices were not damaged.
"We don't know what caused this. We will be doing a thorough investigation and we want to listen to the event recorders to see
what kind of information is on them," he said.
Seland said the two survivors will be interviewed this week.
He said Teck-Cominco officials told him Monday night that they have not had any accidents on the line in more than 40
years and that they are at a loss to explain what happened.
At least three Transport Canada railway inspectors are also on scene and are investigating whether the accident involved violations of
the Railway Safety Act or the Canada Labour Code, according to a Transport Canada spokeswoman.
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